

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 












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When lie caught sight of the fugitives, they were 
already out of effective pistol range. 
frontispiece. See page 308. 





V 


THE ISLE OF 
RETRIBUTION 


BY 


EDISON MARSHALL 

*i 


WITH FRONTISPIECE BY 
DOUGLAS DUER 




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BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1923 

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Copyright , IQ2J, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 

Published February, 1923 


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Printed in the United States of America 


FEB 10 *23 q 

©C1A69C316 

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THE ISLE OF RETRIBUTION 








* 




The Isle of Retribution 


i 

The manifold powers of circumstance were in 
conspiracy against Ned Cornet this late August 
afternoon. No detail was important in itself. It 
had been drizzling slowly and mournfully, but 
drizzle is not uncommon in Seattle. Ned Cornet 
had been passing the time pleasantly in the Totem 
Club, on Fourth Street, doing nothing in particu¬ 
lar, nothing exceedingly bad or good or even un¬ 
usually diverting; but such was quite a customary 
practice with him. Finally, Cornet’s special 
friend, Rodney Coburn, had just returned from one 
of his hundred sojourns in far places, — this time 
from an especially attractive salmon stream in 
Canada. 

The two young men had met in Coburn’s room 
at the Totem Club, and the steward had gone 
thither with tall glasses and ice. Coburn had not 
returned empty-handed from Canada. Besides 
pleasant memories of singing reels and throbbing 
rods and of salmon that raced like wild sea horses 
down the riffles, he had brought that which was 
much less healthful, — various dark bottles of time- 
honored liquors. Partly in celebration of his re¬ 
turn, and partly because of the superior quality of 


4 


The Isle of Retribution 

the goods that had accompanied him, his friend Ned 
raised his afternoon limit from two powerful pre¬ 
dinner cocktails to no less than four richly amber 
whiskies-and-sodas. Thus their meeting was aus¬ 
picious, and on leaving the club, about seven, it 
came about that Ned Cornet met the rain. 

It was not enough to bother him. He didn’t 
even think about it. It was only a lazy, smoky 
drizzle that deepened the shadows of falling twi¬ 
light and blurred the lights in the street. Ned 
Cornet had a fire within that more or less occupied 
his thoughts. He didn’t notice the rain, and he 
quite failed to observe the quick pulsation of the 
powerful engine in his roadster that might other¬ 
wise have warned him that he had long since passed 
the absolute limit that tolerant traffic officers could 
permit in the way of speed. 

Cornet was not really drunk. His stomach was 
fortified, by some years of experience, against an 
amount somewhere in the region of a half-pint of 
the most powerful spirits, — sufficient poison to kill 
stone dead a good percentage of the lower animals. 
Being a higher animal Ned held his liquor surpris¬ 
ingly well. He was somewhat exhilarated, faintly 
flushed; his eyes had a sparkle as of broken glass, 
and he felt distinctly warm and friendly toward all 
the hurrying thousands on the street, but his motor 
centers were not in the least impaired. Under 
stress, and by inhaling sharply, he could deceive his 
own mother into thinking that he had not had a 
drink. Nevertheless a pleasant recklessness was 
upon him, and he couldn’t take the trouble to ob- 


The Isle of Retribution 5 

serve such stupid things as traffic laws and rain-wet 
pavements. 

But it came about that this exhilaration was not 
to endure long. In a space of time so short that it 
resembled some half-glimpsed incident in a dream, 
Ned found himself, still at his wheel, the car cross¬ 
wise in the street and the front wheels almost touch¬ 
ing the curb, a terrible and ghastly sobriety upon 
him. Something had happened. He had gone 
into a perilous skid at the corner of Fourth and 
Madison, the car had slid sickeningly out of his 
control, and at the wrong instant a dark shape, all 
too plainly another automobile, had lurched out of 
the murk of the rain. There had been no sense of 
violent shock. All things had slid easily, the sound 
at his fender was slow and gentle, and people, in 
the fading light, had slow, peculiar expressions on 
their faces. Then a great fear, like a sharp point, 
pricked him and he sprang from his seat in one 
powerful leap. 

Ned Cornet had had automobiles at his command 
long before it was safe for him to have his hands on 
them. When cold sober he drove rather too fast, 
none too carefully, but had an almost incredible 
mastery over his car. He knew how to pick his 
wheel tracks over bumpy roads, and he knew the 
exact curve that a car could take with safety in 
rounding a corner. Even now, in the crisis that 
had just been, he had handled his car like the vet¬ 
eran he was. The wonder was not that he had hit 
the other car, but rather, considering the speed with 
which he had come, that it should continue to remain 


6 


The Isle of Retribution 

before his sight, but little damaged, instead of being 
shattered into kindling and dust. His instincts 
had responded rather well. It was a somewhat 
significant thing, to waken hope in the breast of an 
otherwise despairing father, that in that stress and 
terror he had kept his head, he had handled his 
brakes and wheel in the only way that would be of 
any possible good, and almost by miracle had 
avoided a smashing crash that could have easily 
killed him and every occupant in the colliding car. 
Nevertheless it was not yet time to receive con¬ 
gratulations from spectators. There had been seri¬ 
ous consequences enough. He was suddenly face 
to face with the fact that in his haste to get home 
for dinner he had very likely obliterated a human 
life. 

There was a curious, huddled heap on the dim 
pavement, just beyond the small car he had struck. 
It was a girl; she lay very still, and the face half 
covered by the arm seemed very white and lifeless. 
And blasted by a terror such as was never known in 
all his wasted years, Ned leaped, raced, and fell to 
his knees at her side. 

It seemed to him that the soft noise of the crash 
was not yet dead in the air. It was as if he had 
made the intervening distance in one leap. In that 
same little second his brain encompassed limitless 
areas, — terror, remorse, certain vivid vistas of his 
past life, the whiteness of the eyelids and the limp¬ 
ness of the little arms, and the startled faces of the 
spectators who were hurrying toward him. His 
mental mechanism, dulled before by drink, was 



The Isle of Retribution 7 

keyed to such a degree that the full scope of the 
accident went home to him in an instant. 

The car he had struck was one of the thousands 
of “ jitneys ” of which he had so often spoken with 
contempt. The girl was a shopgirl or factory 
worker, on her way home. Shaken with horror, but 
still swift and strong from the stimulus of the crisis, 
he lifted her head and shoulders in his arms. 

It was a dark second in the life of this care-free, 
self-indulgent son of wealth as he stared into the 
white, blank, thin face before him. He was closer 
to the Darkness that men know as Death than he 
had ever been before, — so close that some of its 
shadow went into his own eyes, and made them 
look like odd black holes in his white skin, quite 
different from the vivid orbs that Rodney Coburn 
had seen over the tall glasses an hour before. For 
once, Ned Cornet was face to face with stern 
reality. And he waited, stricken with despair, for 
that face to give some sign of life. 

It was all the matter of a second. The people 
who had seen the accident and the remaining pas¬ 
sengers of the “ jitney ” had not yet reached his 
side. But for all that, the little instant of waiting 
contained more of the stuff of life than all the rest 
of Ned Cornet’s time on earth. Then the girl 
smiled in his face. 

“ I’m not hurt,” he heard her say, seemingly in 
answer to some senseless query of his. She shook 
her head at the same time, and she smiled as she did 
it. “ I know what I’m saying,” she went on. “ I’m 
not hurt — one— bit! 



8 


The Isle of Retribution 

A great elation and enthusiasm went over the lit¬ 
tle crowd that was gathering around her. There 
could be no doubt but that she told the truth. Her 
voice had the full ring of one whose nerves are abso¬ 
lutely unimpaired. Evidently she had received but 
the slightest blow from one of the cars when its 
momentum was all but spent. And now, with the 
aid of a dozen outstretching hands, she was on her 
feet. 

The little drama, as if hurled in an instant from 
the void, was already done. Tragedy had been 
averted; it was merely one of the thousands of un¬ 
important smash-ups that occur in a great city 
every year. Some of the spectators were already 
moving on. In just a moment, before half a dozen 
more words could be said, other cars were swinging 
by, and a policeman was on the scene asking ques¬ 
tions and jotting down license numbers. Just for 
a moment he paused at Ned’s elbow. 

“ Your name and address, please? ” he asked 
coldly. 

Ned whirled, turning his eyes from the girl’s face 
for the first time. “Ned Cornet,” he answered. 
And he gave his father’s address on Queen Anne 
Hill. 

“ Show up before Judge Rossman in the morn¬ 
ing,” he ordered. “ The jitney there will send 
their bills to you. I’d advise you to pay ’em.” 

“ I ll pay ’em,” Ned agreed. “ I’ll throw in an 
extra twenty to pay for their loss of time.” 

“ This young lady says she ain’t hurt,” the police¬ 
man went on. “ It certainly is no credit to you 


9 


The Isle of Retribution 

that she ain’t. There is plenty of witnesses here if 
she wants to make a suit.” 

“ I’ll give this young lady complete satisfaction/’ 
Ned promised. He turned to her in easy friendli¬ 
ness, a queer little crooked smile, winning and as¬ 
tonishingly juvenile, appearing at his mouth. 
“ Now let’s get in my car. I’ll take you home — 
and we can talk this over.” 

They pushed together through the little circle of 
the curious, he helped her courteously into the big, 
easy seat of his roadster, and in a moment they were 
threading their way through the early evening 
traffic. 

“ Good Lord,” the man breathed. “ I wouldn’t 
have blamed that mob if they had lynched me. 
Where do we go? ” 

She directed him out Madison, into a district of 
humble, modest, but respectable residences. “ It’s 
lucky you came along — I don’t often get a ride 
clear to my door.” 

“ Lucky! I want to say if it wasn’t for all the 
luck in the world you’d be going to the hospital in¬ 
stead. I’m taking all the blame for that smash 
back there — I got off mighty lucky. Now let’s 
settle about the dress — and a few other things. 
First—you’re sure you’re not hurt?” 

He was a little surprised at the gay, girlish smile 
about her lips. “ Not a particle. It would be nice 
if I could go to the hospital two weeks or so, just to 
rest — but I haven’t the conscience to do it. I’m 
not even scratched — just pushed over in the street. 
And I’m afraid I can’t even charge you for the 





io The Isle of Retribution 

dress. I’ve always had too much conscience, Mr. 
Cornet.” 

“ Of course I’m going to pay-” 

“ The dress cost only about twenty dollars — at 
a sale. And it doesn’t seem to be even damaged. 
Of course it will have to be cleaned. To save you 
the embarrassment I see growing in your face, I’ll 
gladly send the bill to you if you like-” 

In the bright street light he looked up, studying 
her face. He had never really observed it before. 
Before he had watched it for a sign of life that was 
only the antithesis of death, but now he found him¬ 
self regarding it from another viewpoint. Her 
slender, pretty face was wholly in keeping with her 
humor, her honesty, her instinctive good manners. 
If she were a factory worker, hard toil had not in 
the least coarsened or hardened her. Her skin had 
a healthy freshness, pink like the marvelous pink of 
certain spring wild flowers, and she had delicate 
girlish features that wholly suited his appraising 
eye. 

She was one of those girls who have worlds of 
hair to spend lavishly in setting off piquant faces. 
It must have been dark brown; at least it looked so 
in the street light. Below was a clear, girlish brow, 
with never a line except the friendly ones of com¬ 
panionship and humor. Her eyes seemed to be 
deeply blue, good-natured, childishly happy, amaz¬ 
ingly clear and luminous, a perfect index to her 
mood. Now they were smiling, partly with delight 
in the ride and in the luxury of the car, partly from 
the sheer joy of the adventure. Ned rather wished 




The Isle of Retribution 


11 


that the light was better. He’d like to have given 
them further study. 

She had a pretty nose, and full, almost sensuous 
lips that curled easily and softly as she smiled. 
Then there was a delectable glimpse of the little 
hollow of & slender throat, at the collar of her dress. 

Ned found himself staring, and he didn’t know 
just why. He was no stranger to women’s beauty; 
some degree of it was the rule rather than the ex¬ 
ception in the circle in which he moved; but some 
way this before him now was beauty of a different 
kind. It was warm, and it went down inside of him 
and touched some particular mood and fancy that 
had never manifested itself before. He had seen 
such beauty, now and again, in children — young 
girls with the freshness of a spring flower, just 
emerging into the bloom of first womanhood, and 
not yet old enough for him to meet in a social way 

— but it had never occurred to him that it could 
linger past the “ flapper ” age. This girl in his car 
was in her early twenties — over, rather than under 

— of medium height, with the slender strength of an 
expert swimmer, yet her beauty was that of a child. 

He couldn’t tell, at first, in just what her beauty 
lay. Other girls had fresh skins, bright eyes, smil¬ 
ing lips and masses of dark, lustrous hair, — and 
some of them even had the simplicity of good man¬ 
ners. Ned had a quick, sure mind, and for a mo¬ 
ment he mused over his wheel as he tried to puzzle 
it out. 

In all probability it lay in the soft, girlish lines 
about her lips and eyes. Curiously there was not 






12 


The Isle of Retribution 

the slightest hardness about them. Some way, this 
girl had missed a certain hardening process that 
most of his own girl friends had undergone; the life 
of the twentieth century, in a city of more than 
three hundred thousand, had left her unscathed. 
There were only tenderness and girlish sweetness in 
the lines, not sophistication, not self-love, not reck¬ 
lessness or selfishness that he had some way come 
to expect. 

But soon after this Ned Cornet caught himself 
with a whispered oath. He was positively maudlin! 
The excitement, the near approach to tragedy, the 
influence of the liquor manifesting itself once more 
in his veins were making him stare and think like a 
silly fool. The girl was a particularly attractive 
shopgirl or factory worker, strong and athletic for 
all her appealing slenderness, doubtless pretty 
enough to waken considerable interest in certain of 
his friends who went in for that sort of thing, but 
he, Ned Cornet, had other interests. The gaze he 
bent upon her was suddenly indifferent. 

They were almost at their destination now, and 
he did not see the sudden decline of her mood in re¬ 
sponse to his dying interest. Sensitive as a flower 
to sunlight, she realized in a moment that a barrier 
of caste had dropped down between them. She was 
silent the rest of the way. 

“ Would you mind telling me what you do — in 
the way of work, I mean? ” he asked her, at her 
door. “ My father has a business that employs 
many girls. There might be a chance-” 

“ I can do almost anything with a needle, thank 




The Isle of Retribution 


13 


you/’ she told him with perfect frankness. “ Fit¬ 
ting, hemstitching, embroidery — I could name a 
dozen other things.” 

“We employ dozens of seamstresses and fitters. 
I suppose I can reach you here —after work-hours. 
I’ll keep you in mind.” 

An instant later he had bidden her good night 
and driven away, little dreaming that, through the 
glass pane of the door, her lustrous blue eyes had 
followed the red spark that was his tail-light till it 
disappeared in the deepening gloom. 


II 


Ned Cornet kept well within the speed laws on 
his way back to his father’s beautiful home on 
Queen Anne Hill. He was none too well pleased 
with himself, and his thoughts were busy. There 
would be some sort of a scene with Godfrey Cornet, 
the gray man whose self-amassed wealth would 
ultimately settle for the damages to the “ jitney ” 
and the affront to the municipality, — perhaps only 
a frown, a moment’s coldness about the lips, but a 
scene nevertheless. He looked forward to it with 
great displeasure. 

It was a curious thing that lately he had begun 
to feel vague embarrassment and discomfiture in 
his father’s presence. He had been finding it a 
comfort to avoid him, to go to his club on the even¬ 
ings his father spent at home, and especially to shun 
intimate conversation with him. Ned didn’t know 
just why this was true; perhaps he had never 
paused to think about it before. He simply felt 
more at ease away from his father, more free to go 
his own way. Seme way, the very look on the gray 
face was a reproach. 

No one could look at Godfrey Cornet and doubt 
that he was the veteran of many wars. The battles 
he had fought had been those of economic stress, 
but they had scarred him none the less. His face 
was written over, like an ancient scroll, with deep, 



The Isle of Retribution 15 

dark lines, and every one marked him as the fighter 
he was. 

Every one of his fine features told the same story. 
His mouth was hard and grim, but it could smile 
with the kindest, most boyish pleasure on occasion. 
His nose was like an eagle’s beak, his face was lean 
with never a sagging muscle, his eyes, coal black, 
had each bright points as of blades of steel. People 
always wondered at his trim, erect form, giving 
little sign of his advanced years. He still looked 
hard as an athlete; and so he was. He had never 
permitted “ vile luxury’s contagion ” to corrupt his 
tissues. For all the luxury with which he had sur¬ 
rounded his wife and son, he himself had always 
lived frugally: simple food, sufficient exercise, the 
most personal and detailed contact with his great 
business. He had fought upward from utter pov¬ 
erty to the presidency and ownership of one of the 
greatest fur houses of his country, partly through 
the exercise of the principle of absolute business in¬ 
tegrity, mostly through the sheer dynamic force of 
the man. His competitors knew him as a fair but 
remorseless fighter; but his fame carried far beyond 
the confines of his resident city. Bearded trappers, 
running their lines through the desolate wastes of 
the North, were used to seeing him come venturing 
up their gray rivers in the spring, fur-clad and 
wind-tanned, — finding his relaxation and keeping 
fit by personally attending to the buying of some of 
his furs. Thus it was hard for a soft man to feel 
easy in his presence. 

Ned Cornet wished that he didn’t have to face 



16 


The Isle of Retribution 

him to-night. The interview, probably short, cer¬ 
tainly courteous, would leave him a vague discom¬ 
fort and discontent that could only be alleviated by 
further drinks, many of them and strong. But 
there was nothing to do but face it. Dependence 
was a hard lot; unlike such men as Rodney Coburn 
and Rex Nard, Ned had no great income-yielding 
capital in his own name. He was somewhat down¬ 
cast and sullen as he entered the cheerfully lighted 
hallway of his father’s house. 

In the soft light it was immediately evident that 
he was his father’s son, yet there were certain 
marked differences between them. Warrior blood 
had some way failed to come down to Ned. For all 
his stalwart body, he gave no particular image of 
strength. There was noticeable extra weight at his 
abdomen and in the flesh of his neck, and there was 
also an undeniable flabbiness of his facial muscles. 

Godfrey Cornet’s hands and face were peculiarly 
trim and hard and brown, but in the bright light 
and under careful scrutiny, his son’s showed some¬ 
what sallow. To a casual observer he showed un¬ 
mistakable signs of an easy life and luxurious sur¬ 
roundings; but the mark of prolonged dissipation 
was not immediately evident. Perhaps the little 
triangles on either side of his irises were not the 
hard, bluish-white they should be; possibly there 
was the faintest beginning of a network of fine, red 
lines just below the swollen flesh sacks beneath his 
eyes. The eyes themselves were black and vivid, 
not unlike his father’s; he had a straight, good nose, 
a rather crooked, friendly mouth, and the curly 


The Isle of Retribution 


17 


brown hair of a child. As yet there was no real 
viciousness in his face. There was amiable weak¬ 
ness, truly, but plenty of friendly boyishness and 
good will. 

He took his place at the stately table so gravely 
and quietly that his parent’s interest was at once 
wakened. His father smiled quietly at him across 
the board. 

“ Well, Ned,” he asked at last. “ What is it to¬ 
day?” 

“ Nothing very much. A very close call, though, 
to real tragedy. I might as well tell you about it, 
as likely enough it’ll be in the papers to-morrow. I 
went into a bad skid at Fourth and Madison, hit a 
jitney, and before we got quite stopped managed 
to knock a girl over on the pavement. Didn’t hurt 
her a particle. But there’s a hundred dollars’ dam¬ 
age to the jit—and a pretty severe scare for your 
young son.” 

As he talked, his eyes met those of his father, 
almost as if he were afraid to look away. The older 
man made little comment. He went on with his 
dessert, and soon the talk veered to other matters. 

There hadn’t been any kind of a scene, after all. 
It was true that his father looked rather drawn and 
tired, — more so than usual. Perhaps difficult 
problems had come up to-day at the store. His 
voice had a peculiar, subdued, quiet note that wasn’t 
quite familiar. Ned felt a somber heaviness in the 
air. 

He did not excuse himself and hurry away as he 
had hoped to do. He seemed to feel that to make 


18 


The Isle of Retribution 

such an offer would precipitate some impending 
issue that he had no desire to meet. His father’s 
thoughts were busy; both his wife and his son 
missed the usual absorbingly interesting discourse 
that was a tradition at the Cornet table. The older 
man finished his coffee, slowly lighted a long, sleek 
cigar, and for a moment rested with elbows on the 
table. 

“ Well, Ned, I suppose I mig^it as well get this 
off my chest,” he began at last. “ Now is as auspi¬ 
cious a time as any. You say you got a good 
scare to-day. I’m hoping that it put you in a 
mood so that at least you can give me a good 
hearing.” 

The man spoke rather humbly. The air was 
electric when he paused. Ned leaned forward. 

“ It wasn’t anything—that accident to-day,” he 
answered in a tone of annoyance. “ It could have 
happened to any one on slippery pavements. But 
that’s ridiculous — about a good hearing. I hope 
I always have heard everything you wanted to tell 
me, sir.” 

“ You’ve been a very attentive son.” Godfrey 
Cornet paused again. “ The trouble, I’m afraid, is 
that I haven’t been a very attentive father. I’ve 
attended to my business — and little else — and 
now I’m paying the piper. 

“ Please bear with me. It was only a little acci¬ 
dent, as you say. The trouble of it is that it points 
the way that things are going. It could very easily 
have been a terrible accident — a dead girl under 
your speeding wheels, a charge of manslaughter in- 



The Isle of Retribution 


19 


stead of the good joke of being arrested for speed¬ 
ing, a term in the penitentiary instead of a fine. 
Ned, if you had killed the girl it would have been 
fully right and just for you to spend a good many 
of the best years of your life behind prison walls. I 
ask myself whether or not I would bring my influ¬ 
ence to bear, in that case, to keep you from going 
there. I’m ashamed to say that I would. 

“You may wonder about that. I would know, 
in my heart, that you should go there. I am not 
sure but that you should go there now, as it is. But 
I would also know that I have been criminal too 
— criminally neglectful, slothful, avoiding my obli¬ 
gations — just as much as you have been neglectful 
and slothful and avoiding your obligations toward 
the other residents of this city when, half-intoxi¬ 
cated, you drove your car at a breakneck pace 
through the city streets. I can’t accuse you with¬ 
out also accusing myself. Therefore I would try 
to keep you out of prison. In doing that, I would 
see in myself further proof of my old weakness — a 
weak desire to spare you when the prison might 
make a man of you.” 

Ned recoiled at the words, but his father threw 
him a quick smile. “ That cuts a little, doesn’t it? 
I can’t help it. Ned, your mother and I have al¬ 
ways loved you too well. I suppose it is one of the 
curses of this age — that ease and softness have 
made us a hysterical, sentimental people, and we 
love our children not wisely, but too well. I’ve 
sheltered you, instead of exposing you to the world. 
The war did not stiffen you — doubtless because 


20 The Isle of Retribution 

you were one of the millions that never reached the 
front.” 

Ned leaned forward. “ That wasn’t my fault,” 
he said with fire. “You know that wasn’t my 
fault.” 

“ I know it wasn’t. The fact remains that you 
lost out. Let me go on. I’ve made it easy for 
you, always, instead of bitter hard as I should have 
done. I’ve surrounded you with luxury instead of 
hardship. You’ve never done an honest day’s toil 
on earth. You don’t know what it is to sweat, to 
be so tired you can’t stand, to wonder where the 
next meal is coming from, to know what a hard and 
bitter thing life is! 

“A girl, thrown on the pavement. A working 
girl, you said — probably homely, certainly not 
your idea of a girl. Perhaps, in your heart, you 
think it wouldn’t have much mattered if you had 
killed her, except for the awkwardness to you. She 
was just one of thousands. You, my son, are Ned 
Cornet—one of our city’s most exalted social set, 
one of our fashionable young clubmen.” 

His tone had changed to one of unspeakable bit¬ 
terness. Ned leaned forward in appeal. “ That 
isn’t true,” he said sharply. “ I’m not a damned 
snob!” 

“ Perhaps not. I’m not sure that I know what 
a snob is. I’ve never met one — only men who 
have pretended to be snobs to hide their fear of me. 
Let me say, though, Ned — whatever her lot, no 
matter how menial her toil, your life could be spared 
much easier than hers. It would be better that you 




21 


The Isle of Retribution 

should be snuffed out than that she should lose one 
of her working hands. Likely you felt superior to 
her as you drove her home; in reality you were in¬ 
finitely inferior. She has gone much farther than 
you have. She knows more of life; she is harder 
and better and truer and worth more to this dark 
world in which we live. The world could ill afford 
to lose her, a fighter, a worker. It would be better 
off to lose you — a shirker, a slacker! 

“ I’m not accusing you. God knows the blame is 
on my own head. For my part I sprang from the 
world of toil — never do I go out into that society 
in which you move but that I thank God for the 
bitter toil I knew in youth. The reason is that it 
has put me infinitely above them. Such soft 
friends as you have wither before my eyes, knowing 
well that they can not meet me on even grounds; or 
else they take refuge in an air of conceit, a pretense 
of caste, that deceives themselves no more than it 
deceives me. They talk behind my back of my 
humble origin — fearfully clothing their own 
nakedness with the garments of worthy, fighting 
men who have preceded them — and yet their most 
exalted gates open before my knock. They dare 
not shut their doors to me. They treat me with the 
respect that is born of fear. 

“ That toil, that hard schooling, has made me 
what I am and given me the highest degree possible 
of human happiness. I find a satisfaction in liv¬ 
ing; I am able to hold my head up among men. I 
have health, the adoring love of a wonderful 
woman; I give service to the world. I can see old 




22 


The Isle of Retribution 

age coming upon me without regret, without vain 
tears for what might have been, without fear for 
whatever fate lies beyond. I am schooled for that 
fate, Ned. I’ve got strength to meet it. My spirit 
will not be buffeted willy-nilly in those winds that 
blow between the worlds. I am a man, I’ve done 
man’s work, and I can hold my place with other 
men in the great trials to come. 

“ What those tests are, I do not know. Person¬ 
ally I lean toward an older theology, one mostly 
outworn now, one cast away by weak men because 
they are afraid to believe in it. It is not for me to 
say that Dante foresaw falsely. The only thing I 
can not believe is the legend over the door — ‘Aban¬ 
don Hope, ye who enter here.’ There is no gate¬ 
way here or hereafter that can shut out Hope. I 
believe that no matter how terrible the punishment 
that lies within those gates, however hard the school, 
there is a way through and out at last. 

“ Hell is not the dream of a religious fanatic, 
Ned. I believe in it just as surely as I believe in a 
heaven. There must be some school, some bitter, 
dreadful training camp for those who leave this 
world unfitted to go on to a higher, better world. 
Lately souls have been going there in ever-increas¬ 
ing numbers. Let softness and self-indulgence 
and luxury continue to degenerate this nation, and 
all travel will be in that direction. My hope is yet, 
the urge behind all that I’m saying to you to-night, 
is that you may take some other way.” 

His black eyes gleamed over the board. For the 
moment, he might have been some prophet of old, 


23 


The Isle of Retribution 

preaching the Word to the hosts of Israel. The 
long dining room was deathly still as he paused. 
Realizing that the intensity of his feeling was wak¬ 
ening the somber poetry within him, revealing his 
inmost, secret nature, he steadied himself, watching 
the upcurling smoke of his cigar. When he spoke 
again his voice and words were wholly common¬ 
place. 

“ There is no force in heaven or earth so strong as 
moral force,” he said. “ In the end, nothing can 
stand against it. If it dies in this land, Lord help 
us — because we will be unable to help ourselves. 
We can then no longer drive the heathen from our 
walls. With it, we are great — without it we are a 
race of weaklings. And with luxury and ease upon 
us, it seems to me I see it manifested ever less and 
less. 

“ Ned, there’s one thing to bring it back — and 
that is hardship. I mean by hardship all that is 
opposite to ease: self-restraint instead of license; 
service instead of self-love; devotion to a cause of 
right rather than to pleasure; most of all, hard work 
instead of ease. I’ve heard it said, as a thing to be 
deplored, that shirt sleeves go to shirt sleeves every 
three generations. Thank God it is so. There is 
nothing like shirt sleeves, Ned, to make a man — 
and hard-working, bunching muscles under them. 
And through my own weakness I’ve let those fine 
muscles of yours grow flabby and soft. 

“ Your mother and I have a lot to answer for. 
Both of us were busy, I with my business, she with 
her household cares and social duties, and it was 


24 


/ 

The Isle of Retribution 

easier to give you what you wanted than to refuse 
you things for your own good. It was easier to let 
you go soft than to provide hardship for you. It 
was pleasanter to give in than to hold out — and we 
loved you too much to put you through what we 
should have put you through. We excused you 
your early excesses. All young men did it, we told 
each other — you were merely sowing your wild 
oats. Then I found, too late, that I could not in¬ 
terest you in work — in business. You had always 
played, and you didn’t want to stop playing. And 
your games weren’t entirely harmless. 

“ This thing we’ve talked over before. I’ve 
never been firm. I’ve let you grow to man’s years 
— twenty-nine, I believe — and still be a child in 
experience. The work you do around my business 
could be done by a seventeen-year-old boy. You 
don’t know what it means to keep a business day. 
You come when you like and go when you like. In 
your folly you are no longer careful of the rights 
of other, better people — or you wouldn’t have 
driven as you did to-day. You can no longer be 
bright and attractive at dinner except under the 
stimulation of cocktails — nothing really vicious 
yet, but pointing to the way things are going. Ned, 
I want to make a man of you.” 

He paused again, and their eyes met over the 
table. All too plainly the elder Cornet saw that his 
appeal had failed to go home. His son was smiling 
grimly, his eyes sardonic, unmistakable contempt in 
the curl of his lips. Whether he was angry or not 
the gray man opposite could not tell. He hoped so 





The Isle of Retribution 


25 


in his heart — that Ned had not sunk so low that he 
could no longer know the stirring urge of manly 
anger. A great depression drew nigh and enfolded 
him. 

“ This isn’t a theater,” was the calloused reply at 
last. “You are not delivering a lecture to Amer¬ 
ica’s school children! Strangely, I feel quite able 
to take care of myself.” 

“ I only wish that I could feel so too.” 

“ You must think I’m a child — to try to scare 
me with threats of hell fire. Father, I didn’t realize 
that you had this streak of puritanism in you.” 

His father made no reply at first. Ned’s bitter 
smile had seemingly passed to his own lips. “I 
suppose there’s no use of going on,” he said. 

“ By all means go on, since you are so warmed 
up to your subject,” Ned answered coldly. “ I 
wouldn’t like to deprive you of the pleasure. You 
had something on your mind: what is it? ” 

“ It was a real opportunity for you — a chance 
to show the stuff you’re made of. It wasn’t much, 
truly — perhaps I have taken the whole thing too 
seriously. Ned, I wonder if you like excitement.” 

“ Do I? You know how I love polo-” 

“ You love to watch! The point is, do you like 
excitement well enough to take a slight risk of your 
life for it? Do you care enough about success, on 
your own hook, to go through snow and ice to win 
it? A chance came to-day to make from fifty to a 
hundred thousand dollars for this firm; all it takes 
is a little nerve, a little endurance of hardship, a lit¬ 
tle love of adventure. I hoped to interest you in 




26 


The Isle of Retribution 

it — by so doing to get you started along the way 
that leads to manhood and self-respect. You carry 
this off successfully, and it’s bound to give you am¬ 
bition to tackle even harder deals. It means con¬ 
tact with men, a whole world of valuable experi¬ 
ence, and a world of fun to boot. It wouldn’t ap¬ 
peal to some of your cheap friends — but heaven 
knows, if you don’t take it up, I’m going to do it 
myself.” 

“Go ahead, shoot!” Ned urged. He smiled 
wanly, almost superciliously at the enthusiasm that 
had overswept his father’s face. The old man’s 
eyes were gleaming like black diamonds. 

It was a curious thing, this love of adventure and 
trial and achievement! The old man was half-mad, 
immersed in the Sunday-school sentiments of a 
dead and moth-eaten generation, yet it was mar¬ 
velous the joy that he got out of living! He was 
one of an older generation, or he would never antici¬ 
pate pleasure in projects that incurred hardship, 
work, responsibility, the silences of the waste places 
such as he knew on his annual fur-buying expedi¬ 
tions. His sense of pleasure was weird; yet he was 
consistent, to say the least. Now he was wildly 
elated from merely thinking about his great scheme, 
— doubtless some stupid plan to add further pres¬ 
tige to the great fur house of Godfrey Cornet. 
Ned himself could not find such happiness in twice 
the number of drinks that were his usual wont. 

“ It’s simply this,” his father went on, barely able 
to curb his enthusiasm. “ To-day I met Leo 
Schaffner at lunch, and in our talk he gave me what 




27 


The Isle of Retribution 

I consider a real business inspiration. He tells me, 
in his various jobbing houses, he has several thou¬ 
sand silk and velvet gowns and coats and wraps left 
on his hands in the financial depression that imme¬ 
diately followed the war. He was cussing his luck 
because he didn’t know what to do with them. Of 
course they were part of the surplus that helped 
glut the markets when hard times made people stop 
buying—stock that was manufactured during the 
booming days of the war. He told me that this 
finery was made of the most beautiful silks and vel¬ 
vets, but all of it was a good three seasons out of 
style. He offered me the lot of two thousand for 

— I’m ashamed to tell vou how much.” 

•/ 

“ Almost nothing! ” his son prompted him. 

“ Yes. Almost nothing. And I took him up.” 

His son leaned back, keenly interested for the 
first time. “ Good Lord, why? You can’t go into 
business selling out-of-date women’s clothes! ” 

“ Can’t, eh? Son, while he was talking to me, it 
occurred to me all at once that the least of those 
gowns, the poorest one in the lot, was worth at least 
a marten skin! Think of it! A marten skin, from 
Northern Canada and Alaska, returned the trapper 
around sixty dollars in 1920. Now let me get 
down to brass tacks. 

“ It’s true I don’t intend to sell any of those hairy 
old white trappers any women’s silk gowns. But 
this was what I was going to have you do: first you 
were to hire a good auxiliary schooner — a strong, 
sturdy, seaworthy two-masted craft such as is used 
in northern trading. You’d fit that craft out with 



28 


The Isle of Retribution 

a few weeks’ supplies and fill the hold with a couple 
of thousand of those gowns. You’d need two or 
three men to run the launch — I believe the usual 
crew is a pilot, a first and second engineer, and a 
cook — and you’d have to have a seamstress to do 
fitting and make minor alterations. Then you’d 
start up for Bering Sea. 

“You may not know it, but along the coast of 
Alaska, and throughout the islands of Bering Sea 
there are hundreds of little, scattered tribes of In¬ 
dians, all of them trappers of the finest, high-priced 
furs. Nor do their women dress in furs and skins 
altogether, either, as popular legend would have 
you believe. Through their hot, long summer days 
they wear dresses like American women, and the 
gayer and prettier the dresses, the better they like 
’em. To my knowledge, no one has ever fed them 
silk — simply because silk was too high — but be¬ 
ing women, red or white, they’d simply go crazy 
over it. 

“ The other factor in the combination is that the 
Intrepid , due to the unsettled fur market, failed to 
do any Extensive buying on her last annual trading 
trip through the islands, and as a result practically 
all the Indians have their full catch on hand. The 
Intrepid is the only trader through the particular 
chain of islands I have in mind — the Skopin group, 
north and east of the Aleutian chain — and she’s 
not counting on going up again till spring. Then 
she’ll reap a rich harvest—unless you get there 
first. 

“ The Skopin Islands are charted — any that are 


29 


The Isle of Retribution 

inhabited at all — easy to find, easy to get to with 
a seaworthy launch. Every one of those Indians 
you’ll find there will buy a dress for his squaw or 
his daughter to show off in, during the summer, and 
pay for it with a fine piece of fur. For some of the 
brighter, richer gowns I haven’t any doubt but that 
you could get blue and silver fox. As I say, the 
worst of ’em is worth at least a single marten. Com 
sidering your lack of space, I’d limit you to marten, 
blue and silver fox, fisher and mink, and perhaps 
such other freak furs as would bring a high price — 
no white fox or muskrat or beaver, perhaps not even 
ermine and land otter. Ply along from island to 
island, starting north and working south and west 
clear out among the Aleuts, to keep out of the way 
of the winter, showing your dresses at the Indian 
villages and trading them for furs! 

“ This is August. I’m already arranging for a 
license. You’d have to get going in a week. Hit 
as far north as you want—the farther you go the 
better you will do — and then work south. Mak¬ 
ing a big chain that cuts off the currents and the 
tides, the Skopin group is surrounded by an un¬ 
broken ice sheet in midwinter, so you have to count 
on rounding the Aleutian Peninsula into Pacific 
waters some time in November. If you wait much 
longer you’re apt not to get out before spring. 

“ That’s the whole story. The cargo of furs you 
should bring out should be worth close to a hundred 
thousand. Expenses won’t be fifteen thousand in 
all. It would mean work; dealing with a bunch of 
crafty redskins isn’t play for boys! Maybe there’d 


30 


The Isle of Retribution 


be cold and rough weather, for Bering Sea deserves 
no man’s trust. But it would be the finest sport in 
the world, an opportunity to take Alaskan bear and 
tundra caribou — plenty of adventure and excite¬ 
ment and tremendous profits to boot. It would be 
a man’s job, Ned — but you’d get a kick out of it 
you never got out of a booze party in your life. 
And we split the profits seventy-five — twenty-five 
— the lion’s share to you.” 

He waited, to watch Ned’s face. The young 
man seemed to be musing. “ I could use fifty thou¬ 
sand, pretty neat,” he observed at last. 

“ Yes — and don’t forget the fun you’d have.” 

“ But good Lord, think of it. Three months 
away from Second Avenue.” 

“ The finest three months of your life — worth 
all the rest of your stupid, silly past time put to¬ 
gether.” 

Almost trembling in his eagerness, the old man 
waited for his son’s reply. The latter took out a 
cigarette, lighted it, and gazed meditatively through 
the smoke. “Fifty thousand!” he whispered 
greedily. “And I suppose I could stand the hard¬ 
ship.” 

Then he looked up, faintly smiling. “ I’ll go, if 
Lenore will let me,” he pronounced at last. 







Ill 


The exact moment that her name was on Ned’s 
lips, Lenore Hardenworth herself, in her apartment 
in a region of fashionable apartments eight blocks 
from the Cornet home, was also wondering at the 
perverse ways of parents. It was strange how their 
selfish interests could disarrange one’s happiest 
plans. All in all, Lenore was in a wretched mood, 
savagely angry at the world in general and her 
mother in particular. 

They had had a rather unpleasant half-hour over 
their cigarettes. Mrs. Hardenworth had been ob¬ 
durate ; Lenore’s prettiest pouts and most winsome 
ways hadn’t moved her a particle. The former 
knew all such little wiles; time was when she had 
practiced them herself with consummate art, and 
she was not likely to be taken in with them in her 
old age! Seeing that these were fruitless, her 
daughter had taken the more desperate stand of 
anger, always her last resort in getting what she 
wanted, but to-night it some way failed in the de¬ 
sired effect. There had been almost, if not quite, a 
scene between these two handsome women under 
the chandelier’s gleam—and the results, from Le¬ 
nore’s point of view, had been absolutely nil. Mrs. 
Hardenworth had calmly stood her ground. 

It was the way of the old, Lenore reflected, to 
give too much of their thought and interest to their 


32 


The Isle of Retribution 


own fancied ills. Not even a daughter’s brilliant 
career could stand between. And who would have 
guessed that the “ nervousness ” her mother had 
complained of so long, pandered to by a fashionable 
quack and nursed like a baby by the woman herself, 
should ever lead to such disquieting results. The 
doctor had recommended a sea voyage to the 
woman, and the old fool had taken him at his word. 

It was not that Lenore felt she could not spare, 
for some months, her mother’s guiding influence. 
It was merely that sea voyages cost money, and 
money, at that particular time, was scarce and 
growing scarcer about the Hardenworth apart¬ 
ment. Lenore needed all that was available for her 
own fall and winter gowns, a mink or marten coat 
to take the place of her near-seal cloak, and for such 
entertaining as would be needed to hold her place in 
her own set. Seemingly the only course that re¬ 
mained was to move forward the date of her mar¬ 
riage to Ned, at present set for the following 
spring. 

She dried her eyes, powdered her nose; and for 
all the late storm made a bewitching picture as she 
tripped to the door in answer to her fiance’s knock. 
Lenore Hardenworth was in all probability the 
most beautiful girl in her own stylish set and one of 
the most handsome women in her native city. She 
was really well known, remembered long and in 
many places, for her hair. It was simply shimmer¬ 
ing gold, and it framed a face of flowerlike beauty, 
— an even-featured, oval face, softly tinted and 
daintily piquant. Hers was not a particularly 



33 


The Isle of Retribution 

warm beauty, yet it never failed to win a second 
glance. She had fine, firm lips, a delicate throat, 
and she had picked up an attractive way of half¬ 
dropping firm, white lids over her gray, langourous 
eyes. 

No one could wonder that Lenore Hardenworth 
was a social success. Besides her beauty of face, 
the grace of a slender but well-muscled form, she 
unquestionably had a great deal of ambition and 
spirit. She was well schooled in the tricks of her 
trade: charming and ingratiating with her girl 
friends, sweet and deeply respectful to the old, and 
striking a fine balance between recklessness and de- 
mureness with available men. It can be said for 
Lenore that she wasted no time with men who were 
not eligible, in every sense of the word. Lenore 
had her way to make in this world of trial and stress. 

Long ago Ned had chosen her from among her 
girl friends as the most worthy of his courtship, — 
a girl who could rule over his house, who loved the 
life that he lived, whose personal appeal was the 
greatest. Best of all, she was the product of his 
own time: a modern girl in every sense of the word. 
The puritanism he deplored in his own parents was 
conspicuously absent in her. She smoked with the 
ease and satisfaction of a man; she held her liquor 
like a veteran; and of prudery she would never be 
accused. Not that she was ever rough or crude. 
Indeed there was a finesse about her harmless little 
immoralities that made them, to him, wholly ador¬ 
able and charming. She was always among the 
first to learn the new dances, and no matter what 


34 


The Isle of Retribution 


their murky origin — whether the Barbary Coast or 
some sordid tenderloin of a great Eastern city — 
she seemed to be able to dance them without ever 
conveying the image of vulgarity. Her idea of 
pleasure ran along with his. Life, at her side, 
offered only the most delectable vistas. 

Besides, the man loved her. His devotion was 
such that it was the subject of considerable amuse¬ 
ment among the more sophisticated of their set. 
He’d take the egg, rather than the horse-and-buggy, 
they told each other, and to those inured in the 
newest slang, the meaning was simply that Lenore, 
rather than Ned, would be head of their house. 
The reason, they explained wisely, was that it 
spelled disaster to give too much of one’s self to a 
wife these days. Such devotion put a man at a dis¬ 
advantage. The woman, sure of her husband, 
would be speedily bored and soon find other inter¬ 
ests. Of course Lenore loved him too, but she kept 
herself better in hand. For all his modern view¬ 
point, it was to be doubted that Ned had got com¬ 
pletely away from the influence of a dead and moth- 
eaten generation. Possibly some little vestige of 
his parent’s puritanism prevailed in him still! 

Ned came in soberly, kissed the girl’s inviting 
lips, then sat beside her on the big divan. Study¬ 
ing his grave face, she waited for him to speak. 

“ Bad news,” he said at last. 

She caught her breath in a quick gasp. It was a 
curious thing, indicating, perhaps, a more devout 
interest in him than her friends gave her credit for, 
that a sudden sense of dismay seemed to sweep over 


35 


The Isle of Retribution 

her. Yet surely no great disaster had befallen. 
There was no cause to fear that some one of the 
mighty arms on which they leaned for happiness — 
the great fur house of Cornet, for instance — had 
weakened and fallen. Some of the warm color 
paled in her face. 

“ What is it? ” She spoke almost breathlessly, 
and he turned toward her with wakened interest. 

“Nothing very important,” he told her casually. 
“ I’m afraid I startled you with my lugubrious 
tones. I’ve got to go away for three months.” 

She stared a moment in silence, and a warm flush, 
higher and more angry than that which had just 
faded, returned to her cheeks. Just for an instant 
there was a vague, almost imperceptible hardening 
of the little lines about her beautiful eyes. 

“Ned! You can’t! After all our plans. I 
won’t hear of it-” 

“ Wait, dearest! ” the man pleaded. “ Of course 
I won’t go if you say not-” 

“ Of course I say not-” 

“ But it’s a real opportunity — to make forty or 
fifty thousand. Wait till I tell you about it, any¬ 
way.” 

He told her simply: the exact plan that his father 
had proposed. Her interest quickened as he talked. 
She had a proper respect for wealth, and the idea 
of the large profits went home speedily and surely 
to her imagination, shutting out for the moment all 
other aspects of the affair. And soon she found 
herself sitting erect, listening keenly to his every 
word. 






36 


The Isle of Retribution 


The idea of trading obsolete gowns for beautiful 
furs was particularly attractive to her. “ I’ve got 
some old things I could spare,” she told him eagerly. 
“ Why couldn’t you take those with you and trade 
them to some old squaw for furs? ” 

“ I could! I don’t see why I shouldn’t bring you 
back some beauties.” 

Her eyes were suddenly lustful. “ I’d like some 
silver fox — and enough sable for a great wrap. 
Oh, Ned — do you think you could get them for 
me?” 

His face seemed rather drawn and mirthless as 
he returned her stare. It had been too complete a 
victory. It can be said for the man that he had 
come with the idea of persuading Lenore to let him 
go, to let him leave her arms for the sake of the ad¬ 
vantages to be accrued from the expedition, but at 
least he wanted her to show some regret. He didn’t 
entirely relish her sudden, unbounded enthusiasm, 
and the avaricious gleam in her eyes depressed and 
estranged him. 

But Lenore made no response to his darkened 
mood. Sensitive as she usually was, she seemed 
untouched by it, wholly unaware of his displeasure. 
She was thinking of silver fox, and the thought was 
as fascinating as that of gold to a miser. And now 
her mind was reaching farther, moving in a greater 
orbit, and for the moment she sat almost breathless. 
Suddenly she turned to him with shining eyes. 

“ Ned, what kind of a trip will this be? ” she 
asked him. 

He was more held by the undertone of excitement 


37 


The Isle of Retribution 

in her voice than by the question itself. “ What is 
it? ” he asked. “ What do you mean-? ” 

“ I mean — will it be a hard trip — one of dan¬ 
ger and discomfort? ” 

“ I don’t think so. I’m going to get a comfort¬ 
able yacht — it will be a launch, of course, but a big, 
comfortable one — have a good cook and pleasant 
surroundings. You know, traveling by water has 
got any other method skinned. In fact, it ought 
to be as comfortable as staying at a club, not to 
mention the sport in hunting, and so on. I don’t 
intend to go too far or too long — your little Ned 
doesn’t like discomfort any too well to deliberately 
hunt it up. I can make it just as easy a trip as I 
want. It’s all in my hands — hiring crew, schooner, 
itinerary, and everything. Of course, father told a 
wild story about cold and hardship and danger, but 
I don’t believe there’s a thing in it.” 

“ I don’t either. It makes me laugh, those wild 
and woolly stories about the North! It’s just about 
as wild as Ballard! Edith Courtney went clear to 
Juneau and back on a boat not long ago and didn’t 
have a single adventure — except with a handsome 
young big-game hunter in the cabin.” 

“But Juneau — is just the beginning of 
Alaska!” 

“ I don’t care. This hardship they talk about is 
all poppycock, and you know it — and the danger 
too. To hear your father talk, and some of the 
others of the older generation, you’d think they had 
been through the infernal regions! They didn’t 
have the sporting instincts that’ve been developed 



38 


The Isle of Retribution 

in the last generation, Ned. Any one of our friends 
would go through what they went through and not 
even bother to tell about it. I tell you this genera¬ 
tion is better and stronger than any one that pre¬ 
ceded it, and their stories of privation and danger 
are just a scream! I’m no more afraid of the North 
than I am of you.” 

She paused, and he stared at her blankly. He 
knew perfectly well that some brilliant idea had oc¬ 
curred to her: he was simply waiting for her to tell 
it. She moved nearer and slipped her hand be¬ 
tween his. 

“ Ned, I’ve a wonderful plan,” she told him. 
“ There’s no reason why we should be separated for 
three months. You say the hiring of the launch, 
itinerary, and everything is in your hands. Why 
not take mother and me with you? ” 

“ My dear-” 

“ Why not? Tell me that! The doctor has just 
recommended her a sea trip. Where could she get 
a better one? Of course you’d have to get a big, 
comfortable launch-” 

“ I intended to get that, anyway.” Slowly the 
light that shone in her face stole into his. “Are you 
a good sailor ? ” 

“ It just happens that neither mother nor I know 
what seasickness means. Otherwise, I’m afraid we 
wouldn’t find very much pleasure in the trip. You 
remember the time, in Rex Nard’s yacht, off Co¬ 
lumbia River bar? But won’t you be in the inside 
passage, anyway? ” 

“ The inside passage doesn’t go across the Bay of 





39 


The Isle of Retribution 

Alaska — but father says it’s all quiet water among 
the islands we’ll trade at, in Bering Sea. It freezes 
over tight in winter, so it must be quiet.” He 
paused, drinking in the advantages of the plan. 
They would be together; that point alone was in¬ 
ducement enough for him. By one stroke an ardu¬ 
ous, unpleasant business venture could be turned 
into a pleasure trip, an excursion on a private yacht 
over the wintry waters of the North. It was true 
that Lenore’s point of view was slightly different, 
but her enthusiasm was no less than his. The plan 
was a perfect answer to the problem of her mother’s 
sea trip and the inevitable expense involved. She 
knew her mother’s thrifty disposition; she would be 
only too glad to take her voyage as the guest of her 
daughter’s fiance. And both of them could robe 
themselves in such furs as had never been seen on 
Second Avenue before. 

“ Take you — I should say I will take you — 
and your mother, too,” he was exclaiming with the 
utmost enthusiasm and delight. “ Lenore, it will 
be a regular party—a joy ride such as we never 
took before.” 

For a moment they were silent, lost in their own 
musings. The wind off the Sound signaled to them 
at the windows — rattling faintly like ghost hands 
stretched with infinite difficulty from some dim, 
far-off Hereafter. It had lately blown from Ber¬ 
ing Sea, and perhaps it had a message for them. 
Perhaps it had heard the scornful words they had 
spoken of the North — of the strange, gray, for¬ 
gotten world over which it had lately swept — but 






40 


The Isle of Retribution 


there was no need to tell them that they lied. A 
few days more would find them venturing north¬ 
ward, and they could find out for themselves. But 
perhaps the wind had a note of grim, sardonic 
laughter as it sped on in its ceaseless journey. 


IV 


Ned planned to rise early, but sleep was heavy 
upon him when he tried to waken. It was after ten 
when he had finished breakfast and was ready to 
begin active preparations for the excursion. His 
first work, of course, was to see about hiring a 
launch. 

Ten minutes’ ride took him to the office of his 
friend, Rex Nard, vice-president of a great marine- 
outfitting establishment, and five minutes’ conver¬ 
sation with this gentleman told him all he wanted 
to know. Yes, as it happened Nard knew of a 
corking craft that was at that moment in need of 
a charterer, possibly just the thing that Cornet 
wanted. The only difficulty, Nard explained, was 
that it was probably a much better schooner than 
was needed for casual excursions into northern 
waters. 

“ This particular craft was built for a scientific 
expedition sent out by one of the great museums,” 
Nard explained. “ It isn’t just a fisherman’s scow. 
She has a nifty galley and a snug little dining sa¬ 
loon, and two foxy little staterooms for extra toney 
passengers. Quite an up-stage little boat. Com¬ 
fortable as any yacht you ever saw.” 

“ Staunch and seaworthy? ” 

“ Man, this big-spectacled outfit that had it built 
took it clear into the Arctic Sea — after walrus and 


42 


The Isle of Retribution 


polar bear and narwhal and musk ox; and she’s built 
right. I’d cross the Pacific in her any day. Her 
present owners bought her with the idea of putting 
her into coastal service, both passengers and freight, 
between various of the little far northern towns, 
but the general exodus out of portions of Alaska 
has left her temporarily without a job.” 

“ How about cargo space? ” 

“ I don’t know exactly — but it was big enough 
for several tons of walrus and musk ox skeletons, 
so it ought to suit you.” 

“ What do you think I could get her for? ” 

“ I don’t think — I know. I was talking to her 
owner yesterday noon. You can get her for ninety 
days for five thousand dollars — seventy-five per 
for a shorter time. That includes the services of 
four men, licensed pilot, first and second engineer, 
and a nigger cook; and gas and oil for the motor.” 

Ned stood up, his black eyes sparkling with 
elation, and put on his hat. “ Where do I find 
her? ” 

“ Hunt up Ole Knutsen, at this address.” Nard 
wrote an instant on a strip of paper. “ The name 
of the craft is the Charon ” 

“ The Charon! My heavens, wasn’t he the old 
boy who piloted the lost souls across the river Styx? 

If I were a bit superstitious-” 

“ You’d be afraid you were headed straight for 
the infernal regions, eh? It does seem to be tempt¬ 
ing providence to ride in a boat with such a name. 
Fortunately the average man Knutsen hires for his 
crew doesn’t know Charon from Adam. Seamen, 





43 


The Isle of Retribution 

my boy, are the most superstitious crowd on earth. 
No one can follow the sea and not be superstitious 
— don’t ask me why. It gets to them, some way, 
inside.” 

“ Sorry I can’t stay to hear a lecture on the sub¬ 
ject.” Ned turned toward the door. “ Now for 
Mr. Knutsen.” 

Ned drove to the designated address, found the 
owner of the craft, and executed a charter after ten 
minutes of conversation. Knutsen was a big, good- 
natured man with a goodly share of Norse blood 
that had paled his eyes and hair. Together they 
drew up the list of supplies. 

“ Of course, we might put in some of dis stuff 
at nordern ports,” Knutsen told him in the unmis¬ 
takable accent of the Norse. “ You’d save money, 
though, by getting it here.” 

“ All except one item — last but not least,” Ned 
assured him. “ I’ve got to stop at Vancouver.” 

“ Canadian territory, eh-? ” 

“ Canadian whisky. Six cases of imperial quarts. 
We’ll be gone a long time, and a sailor needs his 
grog.” 

At which the only comment was made after the 
door had closed and the aristocratic fur trader had 
gone his way. The Norseman sat a long time look¬ 
ing into the ashes of his pipe. “ Six cases—by 
Yiminy!” he commented, with good cheer. “If 
his Pop want to make money out of dis deal he bet¬ 
ter go himself! ” 

i 

There was really very little else for Ned to do. 



44 


The Isle of Retribution 


The silk gowns and wraps that were to be his prin¬ 
cipal article of trade would not be received for a 
few days at least; and seemingly he had arranged 
for everything. He started leisurely back toward 
his father’s office. 

But yes, there was one thing more. His father 
had said that his staff must include a fitter, — a 
woman who could ply the needle and make minor 
alterations in the gowns. For a moment he mused 
on the pleasant possibility that Lenore and her 
mother could hold up that end of the undertaking. 
It would give them something to do, an interest in 
the venture; it would save the cost of hiring a 
seamstress. But at once he laughed at himself for 
the thought. He could imagine the frigid, caste- 
proud Mrs. Hardenworth in the role of seamstress! 
In the first place she likely didn’t know one end of 
a needle from another. If in some humble days 
agone she had known how to sew, she was not the 
type that would care to admit it now. He had to 
recognize this fact, even though she were his sweet¬ 
heart’s mother. Nor would she be likely to take 
kindly to the suggestion. The belligerence with 
which she had always found it necessary to support 
her assumption of caste would manifest itself only 
too promptly should he suggest that she become a 
needlewoman, even on a lark. Such larks appealed 
to neither Mrs. Hardenworth nor her daughter. 
And neither of them would care for such intimate 
relations with the squaws, native of far northern 
villages. The two passengers could scarcely be in¬ 
duced to speak to such as these, much less fit their 



45 


The Isle of Retribution 

dresses. No, he might as well plan on taking one 
of his father’s fitters. 

And at this point in his thoughts he paused, 
startled. Later, when the idea that had come to him 
had lost its novelty, he still wondered about that 
strange little start that seemed to go all over him. 
It was some time before he could convince himself 
of the real explanation — that, though seamstress 
she was, on a plane as far different from his own 
Lenore as night was from day, the friendliness and 
particularly the good sportsmanship of his last 
night’s victim had wakened real gratitude and 
friendship for her. He felt really gracious toward 
her, and since it was necessary that the expedition 
include a seamstress, it would not be bad at all to 
have her along. She had shown the best of taste on 
the way home after the accident, and certainly she 
would offend Lenore’s and his own sensibilities less 
than the average of his father’s employees. 

He knew where he could procure some one to do 
the fitting. Had not Bess Gilbert, when he had 
left her at her door the previous evening, told him 
that she knew all manner of needlecraft? Her well- 
modeled, athletic, though slender form could endure 
such hardships as the work involved; and she had 
the temperament exactly needed: adventurous, un¬ 
complaining, courageous. He turned at once out 
Madison where Bess lived. 

She was at work at that hour, a gray, sweet-faced 
woman told him, but he was given directions where 
he might find her. Ten minutes later he was talk¬ 
ing to the young lady herself. 


46 


The Isle of Retribution 


Wholly without warmth, just like the matter of 
business that it was, he told her his plan and of¬ 
fered her the position. It was for ninety days, he 
said, and owing to the nature of the work, irregular 
hours and more or less hardship, her pay would be 
twice that which she received in the city. Would 
she care to go? 

She looked up at him with blue eyes smiling, — a 
smile that crept down to her lips for all that she 
tried to repel it. She looked straight into Ned’s 
eyes as she answered him simply, candidly, quite 
like a social equal instead of a lowly employee. 
And there was a lilt in her voice that caught Ned’s 
attention in spite of himself. 

“ I haven’t had many opportunities for ocean 
travel,” she told him — and whether or not she was 
laughing at him Ned Cornet couldn’t have sworn! 
Her tone was certainly suspiciously merry. “ Mr. 
Cornet, I’ll be glad enough to accompany your 
party, any time you say.” 


V 


It was a jesting, hilarious crowd that gathered 
one sunlit morning to watch the departure of the 
Charon. Rodney Coburn was there, and Rex 
Nard, various matrons who were members of Mrs. 
Hardenworth’s bridge club, and an outer and inner 
ring of satellites that gyrated around such social 
suns as Ned and Lenore. Every one was very 
happy, and no one seemed to take the expedition 
seriously. The idea of Ned Cornet, he of the curly 
brown hair, in the role of fur trader in the frozen 
wastes of the North appealed to his friends as being 
irresistibly comic. The nearest approach to serious¬ 
ness was Coburn’s envy. 

“ I’d like to be in your shoes,” he told Ned. 
“ Just think — a chance to take a tundra caribou, 
a Kodiac bear, and maybe a polar bear and a walrus 
— all in one swoop! I’ll have to hand over my 
laurels as a big-game hunter when you get back, 
old boy! ” 

“Lewis and Clark, Godspeed! ” Ted Wynham, 
known among certain disillusioned newspaper men, 
as “ the court jester ”, announced melodramatically 
from a snubbing block. “ In token of our esteem 
and good wishes, we wish to present you with this 
magic key to success and happiness.” He held out 
a small bundle, the size of a jack-knife, carefully 
wrapped. “ You are going North, my children! 
You, Marco Polo” — he bowed handsomely to 



48 


The Isle of Retribution 


Ned — “and you, our lady of the snows,” — ad¬ 
dressing Lenore — “ and last but not least, the 
chaperone ” —bowing still lower to Mrs. Harden- 
worth, a big, handsome woman with iron-gray hair 
and large, even features — “ will find full use for 
the enclosed magic key in the wintry, barbarous, 
but blessed lands of the North. Gentleman and 
ladies, you are not venturing into a desert. In¬ 
deed, it is a land flowing with milk and honey. And 
this little watch charm, first aid to all explorers, the 
friend of all dauntless travelers such as yourselves, 
explorers’ delight, in fact, will come in mighty 
handy! Accept it, with our compliments! ” 

He handed the package to Ned, and a great 
laugh went up when he revealed its contents. It 
contained a gold-mounted silver cork-screw! 

Both Lenore and her mother seemed in a won¬ 
derful mood. The ninety-day journey on those 
far-stretching sunlit waters seemed to promise only 
happiness for them. Mrs. Harden worth was get¬ 
ting her sea trip, and under the most pleasant con¬ 
ditions. There would also, it seemed, be certain 
chances for material advantages, none of which she 
intended to overlook. In her trunk she had various 
of her own gowns — some of them slightly worn, 
it was true; some of them stained and a trifle musty 
— yet suddenly immensely valuable in her eyes. 
She had intended to give them to the first charity 
that would condescend to accept them, but now she 
didn’t even trust her own daughter with them. 
Somewhere in those lost and desolate islands of the 
North she intended trading them for silver fox! 




49 


The Isle of Retribution 

Ned had chest upon chest of gowns to trade; surely 
she would get a chance to work in her own. Her 
daughter looked forward to the same profitable 
enterprise, and besides, she had the anticipation of 
three wonderful, happy months’ companionship 
with the man of her choice. 

They had dressed according to their idea of the 
occasion. Lenore wore a beautifully tailored middy 
suit that was highly appropriate for summer seas, 
but was nothing like the garb that Esquimo women 
wear in the fall journeys in the Oomiacs. Mrs. 
Hardenworth had a smart tailored suit of small 
black and white check, a small hat and a beautiful 
gray veil. Both of them carried winter coats, and 
both were fitted out with binoculars, cameras, and 
suchlike oceanic paraphernalia. Knutsen, of course, 
supposed that their really heavy clothes, great 
mackinaws and slickers and leather-lined woolens, 
such as are sometimes needed on Bering Sea, were 
in the trunks he had helped to stow below. In this 
regard the blond seaman, helmsman and owner of 
the craft, had made a slight mistake. In a desire 
for a wealth of silver fox to wear home both trunks 
had been filled with discarded gowns to the exclu¬ 
sion of almost everything else. 

Ned, in a smart yachting costume, had done 
rather better by himself. He had talked with Co¬ 
burn in regard to the outfit, and his duffle bag con¬ 
tained most of the essentials for such a journey. 
And Bess’s big, plain bag was packed full of the 
warmest clothes she possessed. 

Bess did not stand among the happy circle of 


50 


The Isle of Retribution 

Ned’s friends. Her mother and sister had come 
down to the dock to bid her good-by, and they 
seemed to be having a very happy little time among 
themselves. Bess herself was childishly happy in 
the anticipation of the adventure. Hard would 
blow the wind that could chill her, and mighty the 
wilderness power that could break her spirit! 

The captain was almost ready to start the launch. 
McNab, the chief engineer, was testing his engines; 
Forest, his assistant, stood on the deck; and the 
negro cook stood grinning at the window of the 
galley. But presently there was an abrupt cessa¬ 
tion of the babble of voices in the group surround¬ 
ing Ned. 

Only Ted Wynham’s voice was left, trailing on 
at the high pitch he invariably used in trying to 
make himself heard in a noisy crowd. It sounded 
oddly loud, now that the laughter had ceased. Ted 
paused in the middle of a word, startled by the si¬ 
lence, and a secret sense of vague embarrassment 
swept all his listeners. A tall man was pushing 
through the crowd, politely asking right of way, 
his black eyes peering under silver brows. For 
some inexplicable reason the sound of frolic died 
before his penetrating gaze. 

But the groups caught themselves at once. They 
must not show fear of this stalwart, aged man with 
his prophet’s eyes. They spoke to him, wishing 
him good day, and he returned their bows with 
faultless courtesy. An instant later he stood before 
his son. 

“Mother couldn’t get down,” Godfrey Cornet 


51 


The Isle of Retribution 

said simply. “ She sent her love and good wishes. 
A good trip, Ned — but not too good a trip.” 

“ Why not — too good a trip? ” 

“ A little snow, a little cold — maybe a charging 
Kodiac bear — fine medicine for the spirit, Ned. 
Good luck!” 

He gave his hand, then turned to extend good 
wishes to Mrs. Hardenworth and Lenore. He 
seemed to have a queer, hesitant manner when he 
addressed the latter, as if he had planned to give 
some further, more personal message, but now was 
reconsidering it. Then the little group about him 
suddenly saw his face grow vivid. 

“ Where’s Miss Gilbert-? ” 

The group looked from one to another. As al¬ 
ways, they were paying the keenest attention to his 
every word; but they could not remember hearing 
this name before. “ Miss Gilbert? ” his son echoed 
blankly. “ Oh, you mean the seamstress-” 

44 Of course — the other member of your party.” 

44 She’s right there, talking to her mother.” 

A battery of eyes was suddenly turned on the 
girl. Seemingly she had been merely part of the 
landscape before, unnoticed except by such clan¬ 
destine gaze as Ted Wynham bent upon her; but 
in an instant, because Godfrey Cornet had known 
her name, she became a personage of at least some 
small measure of importance. Without knowing 
why she did it, Mrs. Hardenworth drew herself up 
to her full height. 

Cornet walked courteously to the girl’s side and 
extended his hand. 44 Good luck to you, and a 






52 


The Isle of Retribution 

pleasant journey,” he said, smiling down on her. 
“ And, Miss Gilbert, I wonder if I could give you 
a charge-” 

“ I’ll do my best — anything you ask-” 

“ I want you to look after my son Ned. He’s 
never been away from the comforts of civilization 
before — and if a button came off, he’d never know 
how to put it on. Don’t let him come to grief, Miss 
Gilbert. I’m wholly serious — I know what the 
North is. Don’t let him take too great a risk. 
Watch out for his health. There’s nothing in this 
world like a woman’s care.” 

There was no ring of laughter behind him. No 
one liked to take the chance that he was jesting, 
and no one could get away from the uncomfortable 
feeling that he might be in earnest. Bess’s reply 
was entirely grave. 

“I’ll remember all you told me,” she told him 
simply. 

“ Thank you— and a pleasant voyage.” 

Even now the adventurers were getting aboard. 
Mrs. Hardenworth was handing her bag to Knutsen 
— she had mistaken him for a cabin boy — with in¬ 
structions to carry it carefully and put it in her 
stateroom; Lenore was bidding a joyous farewell 
to some of her more intimate friends. The engine 
roared, the water churned beneath the propeller, 
the pilot called some order in a strident voice. The 

boat moved easilv from the dock. 

*/ 

Swiftly it sped out into the Sound. A great 
shout was raised from the dock, hands waved, fare¬ 
well words blew over the sunlit waters. But there 






53 


The Isle of Retribution 

was one of the four seafarers on the deck who 
seemed neither to hear nor to see. He stood silent, 
a profundity of thought upon him never experi¬ 
enced before. 

He was wondering at the reality of the clamor 
on the shore. How many were there in the farewell 
party who after a few weeks would even remember 
his existence? If the blond man at the wheel were 
in reality Charon, piloting him to some fabled un¬ 
derworld from which he could never return, how 
quickly he would be forgotten, how soon they 
would fail to speak his name! He felt peculiarly 
depressed, inwardly baffled, deeply perplexed. 

Were all his associations this same fraud? Was 
there nothing real or genuine in all the fabric of his 
life? As he stood erect, gazing out over the shim¬ 
mering waters, Lenore suddenly gazed at him in 
amazement. 

For the moment there was a striking resemblance 
to his father about his lips and in the unfathomable 
blackness of his eyes. Her own reaction was a 
violent start, a swift feeling of apprehension that 
she could not analyze or explain. Her instincts 
were sure and true: she must not let this side of him 
gain the ascendancy. Her very being seemed to 
depend on that. 

But swiftly she called him from his preoccupa¬ 
tion. She had something to show him, she said, — 
a parting gift that Ted Wynham had left in her 
stateroom. It was a dark bottle of a famous 
whisky, and it would suffice their needs, he had said, 

•j 7 

until they should reach Vancouver. 


VI 


Mrs. Hardenworth had made it a point to go 
immediately to her stateroom, but at once she re¬ 
appeared on deck. She seemed a trifle more erect, 
her gray eyes singularly wide open. 

“ Ned, dear, I wonder if that fellow made a mis¬ 
take when he pointed out my stateroom,” she began 
rather stiffly. “ I want to be sure I’ve got the right 

one that you meant for me-” 

•/ 

“ It’s the one to the right,” Ned answered, some¬ 
what unhappily. He followed her along the deck, 
indicating the room she and her daughter were to 
occupy. “ Did you think he was slipping some¬ 
thing over on you, taking a better one himself? ” 

“ I didn’t know. You can’t ever tell about such 
men, Ned; you know that very well. Of course, if 
it is the one you intended for me, I’m only too de¬ 
lighted with it-” 

“ It’s really the best on the ship. It’s not a big 
craft, you know; space is limited. I’m sorry it’s so 
small and dark, and I suppose you’ve already 
missed the running water. I do hope it won’t be 
too uncomfortable. Of course, vou can have the 
one on the other side, but it’s reallv inferior to 
this-” 

“ That’s the only other one? Ned, I want you to 
have the best one-” 

“ I’m sorry to sav I’m not going to have any. 






55 


The Isle of Retribution 

Miss Gilbert has to have the other. But there’s a 
corking berth in the pilot house I’m going to oc¬ 
cupy.” 

“I’d never let Miss Gilbert have it!” The 
woman’s eyes flashed. “ I wouldn’t hear of 
it — you putting yourself out for your servant. 
Why can’t she occupy the berth in the pilot 
house-” 

“ I don’t mind at all. Really I don’t. The girl 
couldn’t be expected to sleep where there are men 
on watch all night.” 

44 It’s a shame, just the same. Here she is going 
to have one of the two best staterooms all to her¬ 
self.” 

At once she returned to her room; but the little 
scene was not without results. In the first place it 
implanted a feeling of injury in Ned, whose habits 
of mind made him singularly open to suggestion; 
and in the second it left Mrs. Harden worth with a 
distinct prejudice against Bess. She was in a de¬ 
cided ill-humor until tea time, when she again 
joined Ned and Lenore on the deck. 

She was not able to resist the contagion of their 
own high spirits, and soon she was joining in their 
chat. Everything made for happiness to-day. The 
air was cool and bracing, the blue waters glittered 
in the sun, a quartering wind filled the sails of the 
Charon , and with the help of the auxiliary engines 
whisked her rollicking northward. None of the 
three could resist a growing elation, a holiday mood 
such as had lately come but rarely and which was 
wholly worth celebrating. Soon Ned excused him- 



56 


The Isle of Retribution 

self, but reappeared at once with Ted Wynham’s 
parting gift. 

“ It’s a rare day,” he announced solemnly. 

“And heavens! We haven’t christened the 
ship! ” Lenore added drolly. 

“ Children, children! Not yet a day out! But 
you mustn’t overdo it, either of you! ” Mrs. Hard- 
enworth shook her finger to caution them. “ Now, 
Ned, have the colored man bring three glasses and 
water. I’d prefer ginger ale with mine if you don’t 
mind — I’m dreadfully old-fashioned in that re¬ 
gard.” 

A moment later all three had watered their 
liquor to their taste, and were nodding the first 
“ here’s how! ” Then they talked quietly, enjoying 
the first stir of the stimulant in their veins. 

Through the glass window of the cabin whence 
she had gone to read a novel Bess watched that 
first imbibing with lively interest. It was her first 
opportunity to observe her social superiors in their 
moments of relaxation, and she didn’t quite know 
what to make of it. It was not that she was wholly 
unfamiliar with drinking on the part of women. 
She had known unfortunate girls, now and again, 
who had been brought to desolation by this very 
thing, but she had always associated it with squalor 
and brutality rather than culture and luxury. And 
she was particularly impressed with the casual way 
these two beautiful women took down their stagger¬ 
ing doses. 

They didn’t seem to know what whisky was. 
They drank it like so much water. Evidently they 



57 


The Isle of Retribution 

had little respect for the demon that dwells in such 
poisoned waters, — a respect that in her, because 
of her greater knowledge of life, was an innate fear. 
They were like children playing with matches. 
She felt at first an instinct to warn them, to tell 
them in that direction lay all that was terrible and 
deadly, but instantly she knew that such a course 
would only make her ridiculous in their eyes. 

But Bess needn’t have felt surprise. Their atti¬ 
tude was only reflective of the recklessness that had 
come to be the dominant spirit of her age, — at 
least among those classes from whom, because of 
their culture and sophistication, the nation could 
otherwise look for its finest ideals. She saw them 
take a second drink, and later, ostensibly hidden 
from Mrs. Harden worth’s eyes, Ned and Lenore 
have a sma’ wee one together, around the corner of 
the pilot house. 

With that third drink the little gathering on the 
deck began to have the proportions of a “ party.” 
Of course, no one was drunk. Mrs. Harden- 
worth was an old spartan at holding her liquor; 
Lenore and Ned were merely stimulated and talk¬ 
ative. 

The older woman concealed the bottle in her 
stateroom, but the effects of what had already been 
consumed did not at once pass away. Their reck¬ 
lessness increased: it became manifest, to some 
small degree, in speech. Once or twice Ned’s quips 
were a shade off-color, but always rollicking laugh¬ 
ter was the response: once Mrs. Hardenworth, half 
without thinking, turned a phrase in such a way 


58 The Isle of Retribution 

that a questionable inference could hardly be 
avoided. 

“ Why, mama!” Lenore exclaimed, in mock 
amazement. “ Thank heaven you’ve got the grace 
to blush.” 

“ You wicked old woman,” Ned followed up with 
pretended gravity. “ What if our little needle¬ 
woman had heard you! ” 

In reality Bess Gilbert had overheard the re¬ 
mark, as well as some of Ned’s quips that had 
preceded it, and had been almost unable to believe 
her ears. It was not that she was particularly in¬ 
genuous or innocent. As an employee in a great 
factory she had a knowledge of life beyond any 
that these two tenderly bred women could have 
hoped to gain. But always before she had asso¬ 
ciated such speech with ill-bred and vulgar people 
with whom she would not permit herself to asso¬ 
ciate, never with those who in their attitude and 
thought presumed to be infinitely her superior. 

She was not lacking in good sense; so she gave 
no sign of having heard. She wondered, however, 
just how she would have received such sallies had 
she been properly a member of their party. Wholly 
independent, with a world of moral courage to sup¬ 
port her convictions, she could not have joined in 
the laughter that followed, even to avoid being con¬ 
spicuous. It would have been a situation of real 
embarrassment to her. 

The conclusion that she came to was that her 
three months’ journey on board the Charon would 
be beset with many complications. 


59 


The Isle of Retribution 

She made the very sensible resolve to avoid Ned’s 
society and that of his two guests just as much as 
possible. She saw at once they were not her kind 
of people; and only unpleasantness would result 
from her intercourse with them. 

She couldn’t explain the darkening of her mood 
that followed this resolve. Surely she did not lean 
on these three for her happiness: the journey itself 
offered enough in the way of adventure and pleas¬ 
ure. She anticipated hours of enjoyment with 
Knutsen, the Norse pilot and owner of the boat, 
with McNab, the freckled, sandy-haired first en¬ 
gineer, and with Forest, his young assistant. Yet 
the weight of unhappiness that descended upon her 
was only too real. She tried in vain to shake it off. 
A sensible, self-mastered girl, she hated to yield to 
an oppression that seemingly had its source in her 
imagination only. 

Ned had seemed so fine, so cheery, so compan¬ 
ionable the night he had taken her home, after the 
accident. Yet he was showing himself a weakling: 
she saw the signs of it too plainly to mistake. She 
saw him not only on a far different social plane 
from her own, but some way fallen in her respect. 
He was separated from her not only by the unstable 
barrier of caste but by the stone wall of standards. 
She knew life, this girl of the world of toil, and she 
seemed to know that all her half-glimpsed, intan¬ 
gible dreams had come to nothing. 

And her decision to avoid the three aristocrats 
stood her in good stead before the night was done, 
saving her as bitter a moment as any that had op- 


60 


The Isle of Retribution 

pressed her in all the steep path of her life. Just 
after the dinner call had sounded, Lenore, Ned, and 
Mrs. Hardenworth had had a momentous confer¬ 
ence in the little dining saloon. 

The issue was silly and trivial from the first; but 
even insignificant things assume dangerous propor¬ 
tions when heady liquor is dying in the veins. It 
had been too long since Mrs. Hardenworth had 
had her drinks. She was in a doubtful mood, 
querulous so far as her own assumption of good 
breeding would permit, ready to haggle over noth¬ 
ing. The three of them had come into the dining 
room together: none of the other occupants of the 
little schooner had yet put in an appearance. 

“ I see the table’s set for four,” she began. 
“ Who’s the other place for — Captain Knutsen? ” 

“ I’m afraid the captain has to mind his wheel. 
This isn’t an oceanic liner. I suppose the place is 
set for Miss Gilbert.” 

Watching the older woman’s face, Ned discerned 
an almost imperceptible hardening of the lines that 
stretched from the nose to the corners of the lips. 
Likely he wouldn’t have observed it at all except 
for the fact that he had now and then seen the same 
thing in Lenore, always when she was displeased. 

“ Miss Gilbert seems to fill the horizon. May I 
ask how many more there are in the crew? ” 

“ Just McNab, Forest, and the cook. Both white 
men take turns at the wheel in open water.” 

“ That’s three for each table, considering one of 
the men has to stay at the wheel. Why shouldn’t 
one of these plates be removed? ” 


The Isle of Retribution 


61 


The woman spoke rather softly, but Ned did not 
mistake the fact that she was wholly in earnest. “ I 
don’t see why not,” he answered rather feebly. 
“ Except, of course — they eat at irregular 
hours-” 

“ Listen, Ned. Be sensible. When a seamstress 
comes to our house she doesn’t eat at the table with 
us. Not at your house either. Perhaps you’d say 
that this was different, thrown together as we are 
on this little boat, but I don’t see that it is different. 
I hope you won’t mind my suggesting this thing to 
you. I’ve handled servants all my life — I know 
how to get along with them with the least degree of 
friction — and it’s very easy to be too kind.” 

Ned looked down, his manhood oozing out of 
him. “ But she’s a nice girl-” 

“ I don’t doubt that she is,” Lenore interrupted 
him. “ That isn’t the point. It isn’t through any 
attempt to assert superiority that mama is saying 
what she is. You know we like to be alone, Ned; 
we don’t want to have to include any one else in 
our conversation. We’re a little trio here, and we 
don’t need any one else. Tell the man to take away 
her plate.” 

“ Of course, if you prefer it.” Half ashamed of 
his reluctance, he called the negro and had the 
fourth plate removed. “ Miss Gilbert will eat at 
the second table,” he explained. When the man had 
gone, Ned turned in appeal to Lenore. “ She’ll be 
here in a minute. What shall I tell her? ” 

“Just what you told the servant — that she is 
to wait for the second table. Ned, you might as 





62 


The Isle of Retribution 

well make it clear in the beginning, otherwise it will 
be a problem all through the trip. Wait till she 
comes in, then tell her.” 

Ned agreed, and they waited for the sound of 
Bess’s step on the stair. Mrs. Hardenworth’s large 
lips were set in a hard line: Lenore had a curious, 
eager expectancy. Quietly Julius served the soup, 
wondering at the ways of his superiors, the whites, 
and the long seconds grew into the minutes. Still 
they did not see Bess’s bright face at the door. 

The soup cooled, and Mrs. Harden worth began 
to grow impatient. The girl was certainly late in 
responding to the dinner call! And now, because 
she was fully aroused, she was no longer willing to 
accept that which would have constituted, a few 
minutes before, a pleasant way out of the difficulty, 
— the failure of the seamstress to put in an appear- 
ance. The victorious foe, at white heat, demands 
more than mere surrender. The two women, fully 
determined as to Ned’s proper course, were not 
willing the matter should rest. 

“ Send for her,” Mrs. Hardenworth urged. 
“ There’s no reason you shouldn’t get this done and 
out of the way to-night, so we won’t have to be dis¬ 
tressed about it again.” Her voice had a ring of 
conviction; there was no doubt that, in her own 
mind, she had fully justified this affront to Bess. 
“ You’ve got to face it some time. Tell the man to 
ask her to come here — and then politely designate 
her for the second table. She’s an employee of 
yours, you are in real command of the boat, and 
it’s entirely right and proper.” 



The Isle of Retribution 


63 


Wholly cowed, anxious to sustain the assumption 
of caste that their words had inferred, he called to 
the negro waiter. “ Please tell Miss Gilbert to 
come here,” he ordered. 

A wide grin cracking his cheeks, failing wholly 
to understand the real situation and assuming that 
“ de boss ” had relented in his purpose to exclude 
the seamstress from the first table, the colored man 
sped cheerfully away. Bess had already spoken 
kindly to him; Julius had deplored the order to re¬ 
move her plate almost as a personal affront. And 
he failed to hear Ned’s comment that might have re¬ 
vealed the situation in its true light. 

“ I suppose you’re right,” he said weakly, after 
Julius had gone. “ But I feel like a cad, just the 
same.” 

Again they waited for the seamstress to come. 
The women were grim, forbidding. And in a mo¬ 
ment they heard steps at the threshold. 

But only Julius, his face beset with gloom, came 
through the opened door. “ De lady say she 
’stremely sorry,” he pronounced, bowing. “ But 
she say she’s already promised Mista McNab to eat 
with him! ” 


VII 


The Charon sped straight north, out of the 
Sound, through the inside passage. Days were 
bright; skies were clear, displaying at night a mar¬ 
velous intricacy of stars; the seas glittered from the 
kindly September sun. They put in at Vancouver 
the night following their departure from Seattle, 
loaded on certain heavy stores, and continued their 
way in the lea of Vancouver Island. 

Straight north, day after day! To McNab, a 
man who had cruised ten years on Alaskan waters, 
the air began to feel like home. It was crisp, surg¬ 
ing cool in the lungs, fragrant with balsam from 
the wooded islands. Already Ned had begun to re¬ 
adjust some of his ideas in regard to the North. 
It was no longer easy to believe that his father had 
exaggerated its beauty and its appeal, its desola¬ 
tion and its vastness. It was a strange thing for a 
man used to cities to go day upon day without see¬ 
ing scarcely a village beside the sea, a single human 
being other than those of his own party. Here was 
one place, it seemed, that the hand of man had 
touched but lightly if at all. 

The impression grew the farther north he went. 
Ever there was less sign of habitation upon the 
shore. The craft passed through narrow channels 
between mountains that cropped up from the sea, 
it skirted wooded islands, it passed forgotten In- 


65 


The Isle of Retribution 

dian villages where the totem poles stood naked 
and weather-stained before the forsaken homes of 
the chiefs. The glasses brought out a wonderland 
scene just beyond the reach of their unaided sight, 

— glacier and snow-slide, lofty peaks and water¬ 
falls. The mystic, brooding spirit of the North 
was already over them. 

They had touched at Ketchikan, the port of 
entry to Alaska, and thence headed almost straight 
west, across the gulf of Alaska and toward the far- 
stretching end of the Alaskan Peninsula. During 
these days they were far out of sight of land, sur¬ 
rounded only by an immeasurable ocean that rolled 
endlessly for none to see or hear. 

They were already far beyond the limits of or¬ 
dinary tourist travel. The big boats plied as far as 
Anchorage at the head of Cook Inlet — to the north 
and east of them now — but beyond that point the 
traffic was largely that of occasional coastal traders, 
most of them auxiliary schooners of varying respect¬ 
ability. They seemed to have the ocean almost to 
themselves, never to see the tip of a sail on the hori¬ 
zon, or a fisherman’s craft scudding into port. And 
the solitude crept into the spirits of the passengers 
of the Charon. 

It became vaguely difficult to keep up a holiday 
atmosphere. It was increasingly hard to be gay, to 
fight down certain inner voices that had hitherto 
been stifled. Some way, life didn’t seem quite the 
same, quite the gay dream it had hitherto been. 
And yet this immeasurable vista of desolate waters 

— icy cold for all the sunlight that kissed the up- 


66 


The Isle of Retribution 


reaching lips of the waves — was some way like a 
dream too. The brain kept clear enough, but it was 
all somewhat confusing to an inner brain, a secret 
self that they had scarcely been aware of before. It 
was hard to say which was the more real, — the gay 
life they had left, the laughter of which was still 
an echo in their ears, or these far-stretching wastes 
of wintry waters. 

They couldn’t help but be thoughtful. Realities 
went home to them that they had no desire to admit. 
A fervent belief in their own sophistication had been 
their dominant point of view, a disillusionment and 
a realism that was the tone of their generation, de¬ 
nying all they could not see or hear, holding them¬ 
selves superciliously aloof from that gracious won¬ 
der and simplicity that still blesses little children; 
but here was something that was inscrutably be¬ 
yond them. They couldn’t laugh it away. They 
couldn’t cast it off with a phrase of cheap slang; de¬ 
meaning it in order to hold firm to their own phi¬ 
losophy of Self. Here was something that shook 
their old attitude of self-love and self-sufficiency to 
its foundations. They thought they knew life, these 
three; they thought they were bigger than life, that 
they had mastered it and found it out and stripped 
all delusions from it, but now their unutterable con¬ 
ceit, the pillar of their lives, was threatening to fall. 
This sunlit sea was too big for them: too big and 
too mighty and too old. 

The trouble with Ned’s generation was that it 
was a godless generation: the same evil that razed 
Babylon to the dust. Ned and his kind had come 


67 


The Isle of Retribution 

to be sufficient unto themselves. They had lost 
the wonder and fear of life, and that meant nothing 
less than the loss of their wonder and fear of the 
great Author of life. To these, life had been a 
game that they thought they had mastered. They 
had laughed to scorn the philosophies that a hun¬ 
dred generations of nobler men had built up with 
wondering reverence. Made arrogant by luxury 
and ease, they knew of nothing too big for them, 
no mystery that their contemptuous gaze could not 
penetrate, no wonder that their reckless hands could 
not unveil. They were drunk with their own 
glories, and the ultimate Source of all things had 
no place in their philosophies or their thoughts. It 
was true that churches flourished among them, that 
Charity received her due; but the old virile faith, 
the reverent wonder, the mighty urge that has 
achieved all things that have been worth achieving 
were cold and dead in their hearts. But out here 
in this little, wind-blown craft, surrounded by an 
immensity of desolation beyond the power of their 
minds to grasp, it was hard to hold to their old 
complacency. Their old philosophies were barrenly 
insufficient, and they couldn’t repel an ever deepen¬ 
ing sense of awe. The wind, sweeping over them 
out of the vastness, was a new voice, striking the 
laughter from their lips and instilling a coldness 
that was almost fear in their warm, youthful blood. 
The sun shone now, but soon vast areas, not far off, 
would be locked tight with ice; never the movement 
of a wave, never the flash of a sea-bird’s wing over 
the wastes; and the thought sobered them and per- 


68 


The Isle of Retribution 

haps humbled them a little too. Sometimes, alone 
on the deck at night, Ned was close to the dearest 
reality, the most profound discovery that could pos¬ 
sibly touch his life: that the dreadful spirit of God 
moved upon the face of these desolate waters, no 
less than, as is told in Genesis, at creation’s dawn. 

Everything would have been different if they had 
come in a larger boat, for instance, one of the great 
liners that plied between Seattle and Anchorage. 
In that case, likely they would have had no trouble 
in retaining their old point of view. The brooding 
tone of the North would have passed them by; the 
journey could still have remained a holiday instead 
of the strange, wandering dream that it was. The 
reason was simply that on a liner they would not 
have broken all ties with their old life. There would 
have been games and dancing, the service of me¬ 
nials, social intercourse and all the superficialities 
and pretenses that had until now composed their 
lives. Their former standards, the attitudes from 
which they regarded life, would have been unal¬ 
tered. There would have been no isolation, and thus 
no darkening of their moods, no haunting uneasi¬ 
ness that could not be named or described, no whis¬ 
pering voices heard but dimly out of the sea. They 
could have remained in their own old ramparts of 
callousness and scorn. But here they were alone, 
— lost and far on an empty sea, under an empty 
sky. 

There was such a little group of them, only eight 
in all. The ship was a mere dot in the expanse of 
blue. Around them endlessly lay the sea, swept by 



69 


The Isle of Retribution 

unknown winds, cursed by the winter’s cold, like 
death itself in its infinity and its haunting fear. 
The life they had left behind was already shadowed 
and dim: the farewell shouts, the laughter, the 
gaiety, the teeming crowds that moved and were 
never still were all like something imagined, un¬ 
speakably far off. Only the sea and the sky were 
left, and the craft struggling wearily, ever farther 
into the empty North. 

Lenore found herself oppressed by an unreason¬ 
ing fear. Realities were getting home to her, and she 
was afraid of them. It would have been wiser not to 
come, yet she couldn’t have told why. The launch 
was wholly comfortable; she was already accus¬ 
tomed to the cramped quarters. The men of the 
crew were courteous, Ned the same devoted lover 
as always. The thing was more an instinct with 
her: such pleasure as the trip offered could not com¬ 
pensate for an obscure uneasiness, a vague but 
ominous shadow over her mood and heart that was 
never lifted. Perhaps a wiser and secret self within 
the girl, a subconsciousness which was wise with the 
knowledge of the ages before ever her being 
emerged from the germ plasm was even now warn¬ 
ing her to turn back. It knew her limitations; also 
it knew the dreadful, savage realm she had dared 
to penetrate. The North would have no mercy for 
her if she were found unworthy. 

Perhaps in her heart she realized that she repre¬ 
sented all that was the antithesis of this far northern 
domain. She was the child of luxury and ease: the 
tone and spirit of these wintry seas were travail and 


70 


The Isle of Retribution 

desolation. She was the product of a generation 
that knew life only as a structure that men’s civili¬ 
zation had built; out here was life itself, raw and 
naked, stripped and bare. She was lawless, un¬ 
disciplined, knowing no code but her own desires; 
all these seas and the gray fog-laden shores they 
swept were in the iron grip of Law that went down 
to the roots of time. She had never looked beyond 
the surface of things; the heart that pulsed in the 
breast of this wintry realm lay so deep that only 
the most wise and old, devotees to nature’s secrets, 
could ever hear it beat. She had the unmistakable 
feeling that, in an unguarded moment, she had 
blundered into the camp of an enemy. Ever she 
discerned a malevolence in the murmur of the wind, 
a veritable threat in the soft voices of the night. 

The nights, her innate sense of artistry told her, 
were unspeakably beautiful. She had never seen 
such stars before. They were so large, so white, 
and yet so unutterably aloof. Sometimes the moon 
rose in a splash of silver, and its loveliness on the 
far seas was a thing that words couldn’t reach. 
Yet Lenore did not like things she could not put in 
words. For all their beauty those magic nights dis¬ 
mayed and disquieted her. They too were of the 
realities, and for all her past attitude of sophistica¬ 
tion, she found that realism was the one thing she 
could not and dared not accept. Such realities as 
these, the wide-stretching seas and the infinity of 
stars, were rapidly stripping her of her dearest de¬ 
lusions ; and with them, the very strongholds of her 
being. Heretofore she had placed her faith in su- 


71 


The Isle of Retribution 

perficialities, finding strength for her spirit and bol¬ 
stering up her self-respect with such things as pride 
of ancestry, social position, a certain social attitude 
of recklessness that she thought became her, and 
most of all by refusing to believe that life contained 
any depth that she had not plumbed, any terrors 
that she dared not brave, any situation that she 
could not meet and master. But here these things 
mattered not at all. Neither ancestry nor social 
position could save her should the winter cold, 
hinted at already in the bitter frost of the dawns, 
swoop down and find her unprotected. Her own 
personal charm would not fight for her should she 
fall overboard into the icy waters. Here was a 
region where recklessness could very easily mean 
death; and where life itself was suddenly revealed 
utterly beyond her ken. But there was no turning 
back. Every hour the Charon bore her farther from 
her home. 

Mrs. Hardenworth, whose habits of thought were 
more firmly established, was only made irritable 
and petulant by the new surroundings. Never 
good company except under the stimulation of 
some social gathering, she was rapidly becoming 
something of a problem to Ned and Lenore. She 
was irritable with the crew, on the constant verge 
of insult to Bess, forecasting disaster for the entire 
expedition. Unlike Bess, she had never been disci¬ 
plined to meet hardship and danger; her only re¬ 
source was guile and her only courage was reckless¬ 
ness; so now she tried to overcome her inner fears 
with a more reckless attitude toward life. It was 


72 


The Isle of Retribution 

no longer necessary for Ned and Lenore to seek the 
shelter of the pilot house for their third whisky-and- 
soda. She was only too glad to take it with them. 
More than once the dinner hour found her glassy¬ 
eyed and almost hysterical, only a border removed 
from actual drunkenness. Never possessing any 
true moral strength or real good breeding, a certain 
abandon began to appear in her speech. And they 
had not yet rounded the Alaskan Peninsula into 
Bering Sea. 

To Ned, the long north and westward journey 
had been even more a revelation. He also knew 
the fear, the disillusionment, a swift sense of weak¬ 
ness when before he had been perfectly sure in his 
own strength; but there was also a more complex 
reaction, — one that he could not analyze or put 
into words. He couldn’t call it happiness. It wasn’t 
that, unless the mood that follows the hearing of 
wonderful music is also happiness. Perhaps that 
was the best comparison: the passion he felt was 
something like the response made to great music. 
There had been times at the opera, when all condi¬ 
tions were exactly favorable, that he had felt the 
same, and once when he had heard Fritz Ivreisler 
play Handel’s “ Largo.” It was a strange reach¬ 
ing and groping, rather than happiness. It was a 
stir and thrill that touched the most secret chords of 
his being. 

He felt it most at night when the great, white 
northern stars wheeled through the heavens. It 
was good to see them undulled by smoke; they 
touched some side of him that had never been stirred 


The Isle of Retribution 


73 


into life before. At such times the sea was lost in 
mystery. 

The truth was that Ned, by the will of the Red 
Gods, was perceiving something of the real spirit 
of the North. A sensitive man to start with, he 
caught something of its mystery and wonder of 
which, as yet, Lenore had no glimpse. And the 
result was to bring him to the verge of a far-reach¬ 
ing discovery: that of his own weakness. 

He had never admitted weakness before. He 
had always been so sure of himself, so complacent, 
so self-sufficient. But curiously these things were 
dying within him. He found himself doubting, for 
the first time, the success of this northern adventure. 
Could he cope with the realities that were beginning 
to press upon him? Would not this northern wil¬ 
derness show him up as the weakling he was? 

For the first time in his life Ned Cornet knew 
what realism was. He supposed, in his city life, 
that he had been a realist: instead he had only been 
a sophist and a mocker in an environment that was 
never real from dawn to darkness. He had read 
books that he had acclaimed among his young 
friends as masterpieces of realism — usually works 
whose theme and purpose seemed to be a bald-faced 
portrayal of sex — but now he saw that their very 
premise was one of falsehood. Here were the true 
realities, — unconquerable seas and starry skies and 
winds from off the waste places. 

Unlike Lenore, Ned’s regrets were not that he 
had ever launched forth upon the venture. Rather 
he found himself regretting that he was not better 




74 


The Isle of Retribution 

fitted to contend with it. Perhaps, after all, his 
father had been right and he had been wrong. For 
the first time in his life Ned felt the need of greater 
strength, of stronger sinews. 

What if his father had told the truth, and that 
strict trials awaited him here. It was no longer 
easy to disbelieve him. Almost any disaster could 
fall upon him here, in these wastes of sunlit water, 
in the very shadow of polar ice. The sun itself had 
lost its warmth. It slanted down upon them from 
far to the south, and it seemed to be beguiling them, 
with its golden beauty on the waters, into some 
deadly trap that had been set for them still farther 
north. It left Ned some way apprehensive and 
dismayed. He wished he hadn’t been so sure of 
himself, that he had taken greater pains, in his 
wasted years, to harden and train himself. Per¬ 
haps he was to be weighed in the balance, and it was 
increasingly hard to believe that he would not be 
found wanting. 

In such a mood he recalled his father’s words re¬ 
garding that dread realm of test and trial that lay 
somewhere beyond the world: “ some bitter, dread¬ 
ful training camp for those that leave this world 
unfitted to go on to a higher, better world.” He 
had scorned the thought at first, but now he could 
hardly get it out of his mind. It suggested some 
sort of an analogy with his present condition. 
These empty seas were playing tricks on his imagi¬ 
nation; he could conceive that the journey of which 
his father had spoken might not be so greatly differ¬ 
ent than this. There would be the same desolation, 


75 


The Isle of Retribution 

the same nearness of the stars, the emptiness and 
mystery, the same sense of gathering, impending 
trial and stress. The name of the craft was the 
Charon! The thought chilled him and dismayed 
him. 

For all his boasted realism, Ned Cornet had 
never got away from superstition. Man is still not 
far distant from the Cave and the Squatting Place, 
and superstition is a specter from out the dead cen¬ 
turies that haunts all his days. The coincidence 
that their craft, plying through these deathly 
waters, should bear such a name as the Charon sud¬ 
denly suggested a dark possibility to Ned. All at 
once this man, heretofore so sure, so self-sufficient, 
so incredulous of anything except his own contin¬ 
ued glory and happiness and life, was face to face 
with the first fear — the simple, primitive fear of 
death. 

Was that his fate at the journey’s end? Not 
mere trial, mere hardship and stress and adventure, 
but uncompromising death! Was he experiencing 
a premonition? Was that training camp soon to 
be a reality, as terribly real as these cold seas and 
this sky of stars, instead of a mere figment of an 
old man’s childish fancy? 

The thought troubled and haunted him, but it 
proved to be the best possible influence for the man 
himself. For the first time in his life Ned Cornet 
was awake. He had been dreaming before: for the 
first time he had wakened to life. Fear, disaster, 
the dreadful omnipotence of fate were no longer 
empty words to him: they were stern and immu- 



76 


The Isle of Retribution 


table realities. He knew what the wolf knows, when 
he howls to the winter moon from the snow-swept 
ridge: that he was a child in the hands of Powers so 
vast and awful that the sublimest human thought 
could not even reach to them! He could see, dimly 
as yet but unmistakably, the shadow of that travail 
that haunts men’s days from the beginning to the 
end. 

His father’s blood, and in some degree his fa¬ 
ther’s wisdom, was beginning to manifest itself in 
him. It was only a whispered voice as yet, wholly 
to be disregarded in the face of too great tempta¬ 
tion, yet nevertheless it was the finest and most 
hopeful thing in his life. And it came particularly 
clear one still, mysterious night, shortly after the 
dinner hour, as he faced the North from the deck 
of the Charon . 

The schooner’s auxiliary engines had pumped her 
through Unimak Pass by now, the passage between 
Unimak and Akun Islands, and now she had 
launched forth into that wide, western portal of 
the Arctic, — Bering Sea. Still the wonderful 
succession of bright days had endured, no less than 
marvelous, along the mist-swept southern shore of 
the peninsula, but now the brisk, salty wind from 
the northwest indicated an impending weather 
change. It had been a remarkably clear and wind¬ 
less day, and the night that had come down, so 
swiftly and so soon, was of strange and stirring 
beauty. The stars had an incredible luster; the 
sea itself was of an unnamed purple, marvelously 
deep, — such a color as scientists might find lying 


77 


The Isle of Retribution 

beyond the spectrum. And Ned’s eyes, to-night, 
were not dulled by the effects of strong drink. 

For some reason that he himself could not satis¬ 
factorily explain he hadn’t partaken of his usual 
afternoon whiskies-and-sodas. He simply wasn’t 
in a drinking mood, steadfastly refusing to partake. 
Lenore, though she had never made it a point to 
encourage Ned’s drinking habits, could not help but 
regard the refusal as in some way a slight to her¬ 
self, and was correspondingly downcast and irri¬ 
table. Wholly out of sorts, she had let him go to 
the deck alone. 

The night’s beauty swept him, touching some 
realm of his spirit deep and apart from his mere 
love of pleasing visual image. His imagination 
was keenly alive, and he had a distinct feeling that 
the North had a surprise in store for him to-night. 
Some stress and glory was impending: what he did 
not know. 

Facing over the bow he suddenly perceived a 
faint silver radiance close to the horizon. His first 
impression was that the boat had taken a south¬ 
easterly course, and this argent gleam was merely 
the banner of the rising moon. Immediately he 
knew better: except by the absolute disruption of 
cosmic law, the moon could not rise for at least four 
hours. He knew of no coast light anywhere in the 
region, and it was hard to believe that he had caught 
the far-off glimmer of a ship’s light. Seemingly 
such followers of the sea had been left far behind 
them. 

But as he watched the light grew. His own 


78 


The Isle of Retribution 

pulse quickened. And presently a radiant streamer 
burst straight upward like a rocket, fluttered a mo¬ 
ment, and died away. 

A strange thrill and stir moved through the in¬ 
tricacy of his nerves. He knew now what this light 
portended; it was known to every wayfarer in the 
North, yet the keenest excitement took hold of him. 
It moved him more than any painted art had ever 
done, more than any wonderful maze of color and 
light that a master stage director could effect. The 
streamer shot up again, more brightly colored now, 
and then a great ball of fire rolled into the sky, ex¬ 
ploded into a thousand flying fragments, and left a 
sea of every hue in the spectrum in its wake. 

“The Northern Lights!” he told himself. A 
quiver of exultation passed over him. 

There could be no mistake. This was the radi¬ 
ance, the glory that the Red Gods reserve for those 
who seek the far northern trails. Ever the display 
increased in wonder and beauty. The streamers 
were whisking in all directions now, meeting with 
the effect of collision in the dome of the sky, remain¬ 
ing there to shiver and gleam with incredible 
beauty; the surging waves of light spread ever 
farther until, at times, the sky was a fluttering 
canopy of radiance. 

He thought of calling Lenore and Mrs. Harden- 
worth; but some way the idea slipped out of his 
mind. In a moment he was too deep in his own 
mood even to remember that they existed. But not 
only his exterior world faded from his conscious¬ 
ness. For the moment he forgot himself; and with 


79 


The Isle of Retribution 

it the old self-love and self-conceit that had per¬ 
vaded every moment of his past life, colored all his 
views, and shaped the ends of his destiny. All that 
was left was that incredible sky and its weird, re¬ 
flected glamor in the sea. 

This was Aurora Borealis, never to be known, in 
its full glory, to those that shun the silent spaces of 
the North. Suddenly he felt glad that he was 
here. The moment, by measure of some queer bal¬ 
ance beyond his sight, was worth all the rest of his 
past life put together. Great trials might lie ahead, 
temptations might tear him down, his own weakness 
and folly of the past might lay him low in some 
woeful disaster of the future; yet he was glad that 
he had come! It was the most profound, the most 
far-reaching moment of his life. 

Always he had lived close to and bound up in a 
man-made civilization. In his heart he had wor¬ 
shipped it, rather than the urge and the inspiration 
that had made it possible: he had always judged the 
Thing rather than the Source. But for the first 
time in his life he was close to nature’s heart. He 
had seen a glory, at nature’s whim, that tran¬ 
scended the most glorious work of man ever beheld 
in his native city. He was closer to redemption 
than at any time in his life. 

A few feet distant on the deck Bess’s eyes turned 
from the miracle in the skies to watch the slowly 
growing light in Ned Cornet’s face. It was well 
enough for him to find his inspiration in the maj¬ 
esty of nature. Bess was a woman, and that meant 
that man that is born of woman was her work and 


80 


The Isle of Retribution 


her being. She turned her eyes from God to be¬ 
hold this man. 

And it was well for her that Lenore was not near 
enough to see her face in the wan, ghostly radiance 
of the Northern Lights. Her woman’s intuition 
would have been quick to lay bare the secret of the 
girl’s wildly leaping heart. Bess’s eyes were sud¬ 
denly lustrous with a light no less wonderful than 
that which played in glory in the sky. Her face 
was swiftly unutterably beautiful in its tenderness 
and longing. 

And had she not fought against this very thing? 
She had not dreamed for a moment but that she had 
conquered and shut away the appeal that this man 
made to her heart. It would have been easy enough 
to conquer if he had only remained what he had 
been, — selfish, reckless, self-loving, inured to his 
tawdry philosophy of life. But to-night a new 
strength had come into his face. Perhaps it would 
be gone to-morrow, but to-night his manhood had 
come to him. And she couldn’t resist it. It swept 
her heart as the wind sweeps a sea-bird through the 
sky. 


VIII 


Before ever that long night was done, clouds had 
overswept the sky and a cold rain was beating upon 
the sea. It swept against the ports of the little 
craft and brought troubled dreams to Lenore and 
Mrs. Hardenworth. Bess, who knew life better 
than these two, to whom the whole journey had been 
a joyous adventure, did not wholly escape a feeling 
of uneasiness and dismay. At this latitude and sea¬ 
son the weather was little to be trusted. 

The drizzle changed to snow that lay white on the 
deck and hissed softly in the water. As yet, how¬ 
ever, it was nothing to fear. Snow was common 
in these latitudes in September. The sudden break 
of winter might lead to really serious consequences 
— perhaps the unpleasant prospect of being ice¬ 
bound in some island harbor—but in all probabil¬ 
ity real winter was still several weeks distant. The 
scene looked wintry enough to Lenore and Ned, 
however. The air and the sky and the sea seemed 
choked with snow. 

Lenore found herself wishing she had not been 
so contemptuous of the North. Perhaps it would 
have been better not to have taken so many worn- 
out dresses to trade, but to have filled her chests 
with woolens and furs. Even in her big coat she 
couldn’t stay warm on the deck. The wind was icy 
out of the Arctic seas. 



82 


The Isle of Retribution 


Once more the craft plied among islands; but 
now that they had passed into Bering Sea the 
character of the land had changed. These were 
not the dull-green, wooded isles met with on first 
entering Alaskan waters. Wild and inhospitable 
though the latter had seemed, they were fairy 
bowers compared to these. Nor did the mossy 
mainland continue to show a marvelous beryl green 
through mist. 

In the first place, even the prevailing color 
scheme had undergone an ominous change from 
blue to gray. The sun kissed the sea no more: 
under the sifting snow it stretched infinitely bleak 
and forbidding. Gray were the clouds in the sky 
that had been the purest, most serene blue. And 
now even the islands had lost their varied tints. 

Evergreen forests almost always look blue at a 
distance, — bluish-green when the sun is bright, 
bluish-black under clouds. But these voyagers 
saw, with a dim, haunting dread, that the forests 
mostly had been left far behind them. The islands 
they passed now were no longer heavily wooded; 
only a few of the sheltered valleys and the south 
slopes of the hills bore thickets of stunted aspen, 
birch, and Sitka spruce. Mostly these too were 
gray, gray as granite, merely a different shade of 
gray from that of the sea from which they rose. 

The truth was that these islands were far-scat¬ 
tered fragments of the Barrens, those great wastes 
of moss and tundra between the timber belt and the 
eternal ice cap of the pole. Largely treeless, wind¬ 
swept, mostly unpeopled except for a few furtive 



83 


The Isle of Retribution 

creatures of the wild, they seemed no part of the 
world that Ned and Lenore had previously known. 
They were all so gray, so bleak, swept with an un¬ 
earthly sadness, silent except for the weary beat of 
waves upon their craggy shores. 

Mostly the islands were mere snow-swept moun¬ 
tains protruding above the waters, at a distance 
seemingly as gray as the rest of the toneless land¬ 
scape. Only the less mountainous of the islands 
had human occupants, and these were in small, far- 
scattered Indian villages. Seemingly they had 
reached the dim, gray limits of the world: surely 
they must soon turn back. Indeed, these were the 
Skopins, the group that comprised Ned’s first trad¬ 
ing ground, and Muchinoff Island, the northern¬ 
most land in the group and the point selected as his 
first stopping place, from which he would begin the 
long homeward journey from island to island, was 
only a few days’ journey beyond. 

Yet they sped northward a while more, nothing 
changing except day and night. Indeed, day and 
night itself seemed no longer the unvarying reality 
that it used to be. Between the dark clouds and 
the dark sea, night never seemed to go completely 
away. Day after day they caught no glimpse of 
the sun. 

The islands were seen but dimly through mist, as 
might the outlying shores of a Twilight Land, a 
place where souls might come but never living men, 
— a gray and eerie training camp like that of which 
Ned’s father had spoken. It was all real enough, 
truly, remorselessly real; yet Ned couldn’t escape 


84 


The Isle of Retribution 

from the superstitious fear he had known at first. 
The gray, desolate character of the islands seemed 
to bear it out. It grew on him, rather than lessened. 

Yet his standards were changing. Things that 
had not concerned him a few weeks before mattered 
terribly now. For instance, the bareness of the 
islands oppressed him, and he found himself long¬ 
ing for the sight of trees. Just trees, — bending in 
the wind, shaking off their leaves in the fall. They 
hadn’t mattered before: he had regarded them as 
mere ornaments that nature supplied for lawns and 
parks, if indeed he had ever consciously regarded 
them at all; but now they were ever so much more 
important than a hundred things that had previ¬ 
ously seemed absolutely essential to his life and 
happiness. Had his thought reached further, he 
could have understood, now, the joy of Columbus 
— journeying in waters scarcely less known than 
these — at the sight of the floating branch; or the 
exultation in the Ark when the dove returned with 
its sprig of greenery. 

Lately the ship had taken a northeastern turn, 
following the island chain, and the cloudy, windy, 
rainy days found them not far from the mainland, 
in a region that would be wholly icebound in a few 
weeks more. And when they were still a full day 
from their turning point, Knutsen sought out Ned 
on the deck. 

“ Mr. Cornet, do you know where we’re get¬ 
ting? ” he asked quietly. 

Unconsciously startled by his tone, Ned whirled 
toward him. “ I don’t know these waters,” he re- 



The Isle of Retribution 85 

plied. "I suppose we’re approaching Muchinoff 
Island.” 

“ Quite a sail between here and der, yet. Mr. 
Cornet, we’re getting into de most unknown and 
untraveled waters in all dis part of the Nort’. 
De boats to Nome go way outside here, and de trut’ 
is I’m way out of my old haunts. I’m traveling by 
chart only; neither me nor McNab, nor very many 
oder people know very much the waterways be¬ 
tween dese islands. You’re up here to trade for 
furs, and you haven’t got all winter. You know dat 
dese waters here, shut off from the currents, are 
going to be tighter dan a drum before very many 
weeks. Why don’t you make your destination 
Tzar Island, and start back from dere? ” 

“ You think it’s really dangerous? ” 

“ Not really dangerous, maybe, but mighty awk¬ 
ward if anyt’ing should go wrong wit’ de old brig. 
You understan’ dat not one out of four of dese 
little islands is inhabited. Some of de larger 
islands have only a scattered village or two; some of 
’em haven’t a living human being. Der’s plenty 
and plenty of islands not even named in dis chart, 
and I’d hate to hit the reefs of one after dark! 
Der’s no one to send S. O. S. calls to, in case of 
trouble, even if we had wireless. De only boat 
I know dat works carefully through dis country is 
anot’er trader, the Intrepid — and dat won’t be 
along till spring. Mr. Cornet, it’s best for you to 
know dat you’re in one of the most uninhabited 

and barren countries ——” 

“And the most dreary and generally damnable,” 



86 


The Isle of Retribution 


Ned agreed with enthusiasm. “ Why didn't you 
tell me this before? Muchinoff Island isn’t any¬ 
thing in my young life. I picked it out as a start¬ 
ing point simply because it was the farthest north 
of the Skopins, but since there seems to be plenty 
of territory-” 

“ It will make you hump some to cover all de 
good territory now, including some of the best of 
de Aleuts, and get around Alaskan Peninsula 
before winter sets in, in earnest. Tzar Island 
is vust to our nort’east. Shall I head toward 
it?” 

“ Plow long will it take-” 

“ Depends on de wind. Dis is a ticklish stretch 
of water in here, shallow in spots, but safe enough, 
I guess. I think we can skim along and make it in 
long before dawn.” 

“ Then do it! ” Ned’s face suddenly brightened. 
“ The sooner I can shake my legs on shore, the bet¬ 
ter I’ll like it.” 

The seaman left him, and for a moment Ned 
stood almost drunk with exultation on the deck. 
Even now they were nearing the journey’s end. A 
few hours more, and they could turn back from this 
dreary, accursed wintry sea, — this gray, unpeopled 
desolation that had chilled his heart. It was true 
that the long journey home, broken by many stops, 
still lay before, but at least he would face the south! 
Once on his native shores, forever out of this twi¬ 
light land and away from its voice of reproach, he 
could be content with his old standards, regain his 
old self-confidence. He could take up his old life 





87 


The Isle of Retribution 

where he had left it, forgetting these desolate wastes 
as he would a dream. 

He was a fool ever to regret his wasted days! 
He laughed at himself for ever giving an instant’s 
thought to his father’s doleful words. The worst 
of the journey was over, they had only to go back 
the way they had come; and his puzzling sense of 
weakness, his premonition of disaster, most of all 
his superstitious fear of death had been the veriest 
nonsense. His imagination had simply got out of 
bounds. 

The old Charon! He had been afraid of her 
name. Seemingly he had forgotten, for the time, 
that he was a man of the twentieth century, the 
product of the most wonderful civilization the world 
had ever seen. He had been frightened by old 
bogeys, maudlin with time-worn sentiments. And 
now his old egotism had returned to him, seemingly 
unshaken. 

Presently he turned, made his way into the hold, 
and opened one of a pile of iron-bound wooden 
cases. When he returned to the dining saloon he 
carried a dark bottle in each hand. 

“All hands celebrate to-night!” he cried. 
“ We’re going to go home! ” 

Out of the sea the wind seemed to answer him. 
It swept by, laughing. 


IX 


Ned's news was received with the keenest delight 
by Lenore and Mrs. Hardenworth. The latter re¬ 
gained her lost amiability with promptness. Le- 
nore’s reaction was not dissimilar from Ned’s; in 
her native city she could come into her own again. 

The bottles were greeted with shouts of delight. 
Ned went immediately to the sideboard and pro¬ 
cured half a dozen glasses. 

“ All hands partake to-night,” he explained. 
“ It’s going to be a real party.” 

He mixed whiskies-and-sodas for Lenore and 
Mrs. Hardenworth; then started to make the 
rounds of the crew with a bottle and glasses. He 
did not, however, waste time offering any to Bess. 
The latter had already evinced an innate fear of it, 
wholly apart from sentimentality and nonsense. 
She had lived in a circle and environment where 
strong drink had not been merely a thing to jest 
over and sing songs about, to drink lightly and re¬ 
ceive therefrom pleasant exhilaration; but where it 
was a living demon, haunting and shadowing every 
hour. She had no false sophistication — her 
knowledge of life was all too real — and she had no 
desire to toy with poison and play with fire. Both 
were realities to her. She knew that they had 
blasted life on life, all as sturdy and seemingly as 
invincible as her own. Her abstinence was not a 



89 


The Isle of Retribution 

moral issue with her. It was simply that she knew 
here was a foe that met men in their pleasant hours, 
greeted them in friendly ways, and then, by insidi¬ 
ous, slow attack, cast them down and left them 
miserably to die; and she was simply afraid for her 
life of it. Ned, on the other hand, would have 
laughed at the thought of its ever mastering him. 
He felt himself immune from the tragedies that had 
afflicted other men. It was part of the conceit of 
his generation. 

But Ned found plenty of customers for his 
whisky. McNab, at the wheel, wished him happy 
days over two fingers of straight liquor in the glass, 
and Knutsen, his pale eyes gleaming, poured him¬ 
self a staggering portion. “ Go ahead,” Ned en¬ 
couraged him when the seaman apologized for his 
greediness. “ The sky’s the limit to-night.” And 
Forest in the engine room, and Julius in the 
kitchen absorbed a man’s-size drink with right good 
will. 

Ned was able to make the rounds again before 
the call for dinner; and the attitude of his guests 
was changed in but one instance. McNab seemed 
to be measuring his liquor with exceeding care. He 
was a man who knew his own limits, and he appar¬ 
ently did not intend to overstep them. He took a 
small drink, but Knutsen, his superior, consumed as 
big a portion as before. 

It was an elated, spirited trio that sat down at 
the little table in the saloon. Not one of them 
could ever remember a happier mood. Julius 
served the dinner with a flourish; and they had only 


90 


The Isle of Retribution 

laughter when a sudden lurch of the craft slid the 
sugar bowl off the table to the floor. 

“ Hello, the ship’s drunk too,” Ned commented 
gaily. 

They were really in too glad a mood to see any¬ 
thing but sport in the suddenly rocking table. The 
truth was that the wind had suddenly sprung into a 
brisk gale, rolling heavy seas and bobbing the little 
craft about like a cork. The three screamed with 
laughter, holding fast to their slipping chairs, and 
Lenore rescued the bottle that was tipping precari¬ 
ously on the buffet. 

“ We’d better have a little extra one,” she told 
them. “ I’ll be seasick if we don’t.” 

She had to speak rather loudly to make herself 
heard. The wind was no longer laughing lightly 
and happily at their port bows. It had suddenly 
burst into a frantic roar, swelling to the pro¬ 
portions of a thunder clap and dying away on 
a long, weird wail that filled the sky and the 
sea. Instantly it burst forth loudly again, 
and the snow whipped against the glass of the 
ports. 

Ned stood up, braced himself, and immediately 
poured the drinks. But it was not only to save 
* Lenore an attack of sea-sickness. He was also 
swayed by the fact that the heat of the room seemed 
to be swiftly escaping. Fortunately, there was still 
warmth in plenty in the bottle, so he need not be 
depressed by a mere fall of temperature. He 
glanced about the room, rather suspecting that one 
of the ports had been left open. The saloon, how- 


The Isle of Retribution 91 

ever, was as tightly closed as was possible for it 
to be. 

He turned at once, made his way through the 
gale that swept the deck, and procured Lenore’s 
and Mrs. Hardenworth’s heaviest coats. He no¬ 
ticed as he passed that Bess had sought refuge in 
the engine room. Ned waved to her then returned 
to his guests. 

The room was already noticeably colder, not so 
much from the drop in temperature — a ther¬ 
mometer would have still registered above freezing 
— as from the chilling, penetrating quality of the 
wind that forced an entrance as if through the ship’s 
seams. There seemed no pause, now, between the 
mighty, roaring gusts. The long, weird wail they 
had heard at first was only an overtone, in some way 
oppressive to the imagination. The rattle at the 
window was loud for the soft sweep of snow. Ned 
saw why in a moment: the snow had changed to 
sleet. 

There was no opportunity to make comment be¬ 
fore Knutsen lurched into the room. “ It’s tough, 
isn’t it? ” he commented. “ Mr. Cornet, I want an¬ 
other shot of dat stuff before I take de wheel.” 

Ned, not uninfluenced by his cups, extended the 
bottle with a roar of laughter. “ You know what’s 
good for you,” he commented. “ Where’s McNab? 
Let him have one too.” 

“ He’s still at de wheel, but I don’t think he’d 
care for one. He’s a funny old wolf, at times. 
Mrs. Hardenworth, how do you like dis weat’er? ” 

“ I don’t like it very well.” She held fast to the 



92 


The Isle of Retribution 

slipping table. “ Of course, you’d tell us if there 
was any danger-” 

“ Not a bit of danger. Yust a squall. Dis isn’t 
rough — you ought to see what it would be outside 
dis chain of islands. But it’s mighty chilly.” He 
poured the stiff drink down his great throat, then 
buttoned his coat tight. 

Ned, for a moment secretly appalled by the 
storm, felt his old recklessness returning. The cap¬ 
tain said it was only a squall, — and were they not 
soon to turn south? In fact, their direction now 
was no longer north, but rather in an easternly di¬ 
rection toward Tzar Island. He was warm now, 
glowing; the rocking of the boat only increased his 
exhilaration. 

“ There’s only three or four shots left in this 
bottle,” he said, holding up the second of the two 
quarts he had taken from the case. “ You’d better 
have one more with us before you go. A man burns 
up lots of whisky without hurting him any on a 
night like this. Then take the bottle in with you 
to keep you warm at the wheel.” 

Knutsen needed no second urging. He was of a 
race that yields easily to drink, and he wanted to 
conquer the last, least little whisper of his fear of 
the night and the storm. He drank once more, 
pocketed the bottle, then made his way to the pilot 
house. 

“ You’re not going to try to ride her through? ” 
McNab asked, as he yielded the wheel. 

“ Of course. You’re not afraid of a little flurry 
like dis.” 




The Isle of Retribution 93 

His voice gave no sign of the four powerful 
drinks he had consumed. A tough man physically, 
the truth was he was still a long way from actual 
drunkenness. But even a small amount of liquor 
had a distressing effect upon him, — a particularly 
unfortunate effect for one who habitually has the 
lives of other human beings in his charge. He al¬ 
ways lost the fine edge of his caution. With drink 
upon him, he was willing to take a chance. 

McNab stared into his glittering eyes, and for a 
moment his lips were tightly compressed. “ This 
isn’t a little flurry,” he answered at last coldly. 
“ It’s a young gale, and God knows what it will be 
by morning. You know and I know we shouldn’t 
attempt things here that we can do with safety in 
waters we’re familiar with. Right now we can run 
into the lea of Ivan Island and find a harbor. 
There’s a good one just south of the point.” 

“ We’re not going to run into Ivan Island. I 
want to feel dry land. We’re going to head on 
toward Tzar Island.” 

“You run a little more of that bottle down your 
neck and you’ll be heading us into hell. Listen, 
Cap’n.” McNab paused, deeply troubled. “ You 
let me take the wheel, and you go in and celebrate 
with the party. You won’t do any damage 
then.” 

“And you get back to your engine and mind your 
own business.” Little angry points of light shot 
into Knutsen’s eyes. “And if you see Cornet, tell 
him to bring up anoder bottle. Dis one’s almost 
empty.” 


94 


The Isle of Retribution 

McNab turned to the door, where for a moment 
he stood listening to the wild raging of the wind. 
Then he climbed down into the engine room. 

There was nothing in his face, as he entered, to 
reveal the paths of his thought. He was wholly 
casual, wholly commonplace, seemingly not in the 
least alarmed. He stepped to Bess’s side, half 
smiling. 

“ I wonder if you can help me? ” he asked. 

The girl stood up, a straight, athletic figure at 
his side. “ I’ll try, of course.” 

“It depends—have you any influence with 
young Cornet? ” 

Bess slowly shook her head. “ I’m afraid I can’t 
help you,” she told him, very gravely. “ I have no 
influence with him at all. What is it you wanted 
me to do? ” 

“ I wanted you to tell him to put up the booze. 
Particularly to keep the captain from getting any 
more. This is a bum night. It’s against the rules 
of the sea to scare passengers, but somehow, I figure 
you’re the stuff that can stand it and maybe hold 
out. This isn’t a night to have a shipload of drunks. 
There may be some tight places before the morn¬ 
ing” 

“ There’s only one way.” The girl’s lips were 
close to his ear, else he couldn’t have heard in the 
roar of the storm and the flapping of the sails. 
“ Listen, McNab. How much has he got in the 
dining saloon? ” 

“ None, now, I don’t think. He only brought 
up two bottles, and Ivnutsen’s got one of ’em — not 


The Isle of Retribution 95 

much in it, though. They must have emptied the 
other.” 

“ Then we’re all clear.” She suddenly straight¬ 
ened, a look of unswervable intent in her face. 
“ McNab, it’s better to make some one — violently 
mad at you — isn’t it, if maybe you can save him 
from trouble? If you want to see him get ahead 
and make a success of a big venture — it isn’t 
wrong, is it, to do something against his will that 
you know is right? ” 

McNab looked at her as before now he had looked 
at strong men with whom he had stood the watch. 
“ What are you gettin’ at? ” 

His voice was gruff, but it didn’t offend her. 
She felt that they were on common ground. 

“If may be human lives are the stake, a person 
can’t stand by for one man’s anger,” she went on. 

“ Human lives are the first consideration,” the 
man answered. “ That’s the rule of the sea. Most 
sea rules are good rules — built on sense — all ex¬ 
cept the one that you can’t take the wheel away 
from a drunken captain. What’s your idea? ” 

“ You know as well as I do. I promised his fa¬ 
ther before I left that I’d look after Ned. He was 
in earnest — and Ned needs looking after now if he 
ever did. Mr. Cornet won’t blame me, either. 
Show me how to get down in the hold.” 

McNab suddenly chuckled and patted her on the 
back with rough familiarity, yet with fervent com¬ 
panionship. “You’ve got the stuff,” he said. 
“ But you can’t lift them alone. I’m with you till 
the last dog is hung.” 






X 


On the exposed deck the storm met the two ad¬ 
venturers with a yell. For the first time Bess knew 
its full fury, as the wind buffeted her, and the sleet 
swept like fine shot into her face. They clung to 
the railing, then fought their way to the hold. 

Hidden by the darkness and the sleet, no one saw 
them carry up the heavy liquor cases and drop them 
into the sea. The noise of the storm concealed the 
little sound they made. Finally only two bottles 
remained, the last of a broken case. 

“ You take one of those and ditch it in your 
room,” McNab advised. “ I’ll keep the other. 
There might come a time when we’ll find real need 
for ’em — as a stimulant for some one who is freez¬ 
ing.” 

“ Take care of both of them,” Bess urged. “ I’m 
not sure I could keep mine, if any one asked for 
it.” 

“ I don’t know about that. I believe I’d bet on 
you. And now it’s done — forget about it.” 

Soon they crept back along the deck, McNab to 
his work, Bess to her stateroom. The latter ignited 
the lantern that served to light her room, and for a 
moment stood staring into the little mirror that 
hung above her washstand. She hadn’t escaped the 
fear of the night and the storm and of the bold deed 
she had just done. Her deep, blue eyes were wide, 



The Isle of Retribution 


97 


her face was pale, the childlike appeal Ned had 
noticed long ago was more pronounced than ever. 
Presently she sat down to await developments. 

They were not long in coming. She and McNab 
had all but encountered Ned on his way to the hold. 
His bottles were empty, and the desire for strong 
drink had not left him yet. In the darkness under 
the deck he groped blindly for his cases. 

They seemed to evade him. Breathing hard, he 
sought a match, scratching it against the wall. 
Then he stared in dumb and incredulous astonish¬ 
ment. 

His stock of liquor was gone. Not even the 
cases were left. Thinking that perhaps some shift 
in the position of the stores had concealed them, he 
made a moment’s frantic search through the hold. 
Then, raging like a child, and in imminent danger 
of slipping on the perilous deck, he rushed to the 
pilot house. 

“ Captain, do you know what became of my 
liquors? ” he demanded. “ I can’t find them in the 
hold.” 

The binnacle light revealed the frenzy and des¬ 
peration on his drawn face; the mouth was no longer 
smiling its crooked, boyish smile. Knutsen glanced 
at him once, then turned his eyes once more over his 
wheel. For the moment he did not seem to be 
aware of Ned’s presence. He made, however, one 
significant motion: his brown hand reached out to 
the bottle beside him, in which perhaps two good 
drinks remained, and softly set it among the shad¬ 
ows at his feet. 


98 The Isle of Retribution 

“ I say! ” Ned urged. “I tell you my liquor’s 
gone!” 

The captain seemed to be studying the yellow 
path that his searchlight cut in the darkness. The 
waves were white-capped and raging; the sleet 
swept out of the gloom, gleamed a moment in the 
yellow radiance, then sped on into the night. 

“ I heard you,” Knutsen answered slowly. “ I 
was thinking about it. I haven’t any idea who took 
it — if he’s still got it, I’ll see that he gives it back. 
It was a dirty trick-” 

“You don’t know, then, anything about it?” 
As he waited, Ned got the unmistakable idea that 
the captain neither knew nor really cared. He was 
more interested in retaining the two remaining 
drinks in his own bottle than in helping Ned regain 
his lost cases. These two were enough for him. It 
was wholly in keeping with that strange psychol¬ 
ogy of drunkards that he should have no further 
cares. 

“Of course I don’t know r anything about ’em — 
but I’ll help you investigate in the morning,” he an¬ 
swered. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Cornet — that it 
should happen aboard my ship-” 

“ To hell with your ship! I’m going to investi¬ 
gate to-night.” 

Ned started out, but he halted in the doorway, 
arrested by a sudden suspicion. Presently he 
whirled and made his way to Bess’s stateroom. 

He knocked sharply on the door. Bess opened it 
wide. Then for a long second he stared into her 
deep-blue, appealing eyes. 




99 


The Isle of Retribution 

“ I suppose you did it? ” he demanded. 

She nodded. “ I did it — to save you — from 
yourself. Not to mention perhaps saving the ship 
as well.” 

His lip drew up in scorn. Angry almost to the 
verge of childish tears, he could not at first trust 
himself to speak. “ You’ve certainly taken things 
into your own hands,” he told her bitterly. His 
wrath gathered, breaking from him at last in a 
flood. “ You ill-bred prude, I wish I could never 
lay eyes on you again! ” 

His scornful eyes saw the pain well into her face. 
Evidently he had gone the limit: he couldn’t have 
hurt her worse with a blow of his hand. Touched a 
.little in spite of himself, he began to feel the first 
prick of remorse. Perhaps it had done no good to 
speak so cruelly. Certainly the whiskies could not 
be regained. Probably the fool thought she was 
acting for his own good. He turned, slammed the 
door, and strode back to the dining saloon. 

It was by far the most bitter moment in Bess’s 
life. She had done right, but her payment was a 
curse from the man she had hoped to serve. All 
her castles had fallen: her dreams had broken like 
the bubbles they were. This was the answer to the 
calling in her heart and the longing in her soul, — 
the spoken wish that she might pass from his sight 
forever. 

For the last few days, since they had entered this 
strange, snowy, twilight region, she had had dreams 
such as she had never dared admit into her heart 
before. Anything could happen up here. No 


loo The Isle of Retribution 

wonder was too great. It was the kind of place 
where men found themselves, where all things were 
in proper balance, and false standards fell away. 
Some way, she had been on the lookout for a mir¬ 
acle. But the things which had been proven false, 
which could not live in this bitter world of realities, 
were her own dreams! They had been the only 
things that had died. She had been a fool to hope 
that here, at the wintry edge of the world, she might 
find the happiness she had missed in her native city. 
The world was with her yet, crushing her hopes as 
its rocky crust crushes the fallen nestling before it 
learns to fly! 

But at his post McNab had already forgotten the 
episode of the liquor cases. Indeed, he had forgot¬ 
ten many other matters of much greater moment. 
At the present his mind was wholly occupied by two 
stern realities, — one of them being that the storm 
still raged in unabated fury, and the other that a 
drunken captain was driving his craft at a break¬ 
neck speed over practically uncharted waters. 

The danger lay not only in the fact that Knutsen 
had disregarded McNab’s good advice to seek shel¬ 
ter in one of the island harbors. Even now he was 
disregarding the way of comparative safety, was 
not pausing to take soundings, but was racing along 
before the wind instead of heading into it with the 
power of the auxiliary engines. With wind and 
wave hurling her forward, there would be no 
chance to turn back or avoid any island reef that 
might suddenly loom in their path. Knutsen was 
trusting to his sea gods over waters he had never 


101 


The Isle of Retribution 

sailed before, torn by storms and lighted only by a 
feeble searchlight. 

Once more McNab lifted his head through the 
hatch into the pilot house; and for long seconds he 
studied intently the flushed face over the wheel. 
They hadn’t really helped matters, so far as Knut- 
sen was concerned, by throwing the cases overboard. 
Seemingly his watch would be over before the 
fumes of the liquor he had already consumed died 
in his brain. At present he was in its full flush: 
wholly reckless, obstinate, uncertain of temper. 
Was there any possible good in appealing to him 
further? 

“ What now? ” Ivnutsen asked gruffly. 

“ You’ve forgotten all the seamanship you ever 
knew,” McNab returned angrily. “ There’s no 
hurry about reaching Tzar Island. And you’re 
risking everybody’s life on board, sailing the way 
you are.” 

“Are you captain of dis boat? ” Knutsen de¬ 
manded angrily. 

“ No, but-” 

“ Den get out of here. I know exactly what 
I’m doing. You’re just as safe as-” 

But it came about that Captain Knutsen did not 
finish the sentence. McNab was never to find out, 
from Knutsen’s lips, just how safe he was. All at 
once he cried sharply in warning. 

Before ever Knutsen heard that sharp cry, he 
knew what lay ahead. Dulled though his vision 
was, slow the processes of his brain, he saw that 
curious ridge of white foam in front, —an inoffen- 




102 


The Isle of Retribution 

sive-looking trail of white across their bows. At the 
same instant his keen ears caught a new sound, one 
that was only half-revealed in the roar and beat of 
the storm. 

There was not the pause of an instant before his 
great, muscular arms made response. At the same 
instant Forest tried to apply the power of his en¬ 
gines in obedience to the sharp gong from above. 
And then both Knutsen and McNab braced them¬ 
selves for the shock they knew would come. 

The craft seemed to leap in the water, shuddered 
like a living thing, and the swath of the searchlight 
described a long arc into the sleet and the storm. 
It may have been that Knutsen shouted again — a 
meaningless sound that was lost quickly in the wind 
— but for seconds that seemed to drag into inter¬ 
minable centuries he sat absolutely without outward 
sign of motion. His great hands clutched his 
wheel, the muscles were set and bunched, but it was 
as if the man had died and was frozen rigid in an 
instant of incredible tension. His face utterly 
without expression, Forest crouched beside his 
engines. 

There was nothing that either of them could do. 
The waves and wind were a power no man could 
stay. All their efforts were as useless as Knutsen’s 
shout; already the little ship was in the remorseless 
grasp of a great billow that was hurling her toward 
the ridge of white foam in front. For another in¬ 
stant she seemed to hang suspended, as if suddenly 
taken wing, and then there was a sheer drop, a sense 
of falling out of the world. A queer ripping, tear- 


The Isle of Retribution 


103 


ing sound, not loud at all, not half so terrifying as 
the bluster of the wind, reached them from the hold. 

Cold sober, Knutsen turned in his place and 
gonged down certain orders to Forest. In scarcely 
a moment, it seemed, they were pulling the battens 
from the two little lifeboats on the deck. 


XI 


Knutsen’s brain was entirely clear and sure as 
he gave his orders on the deck. His hand was 
steady as iron. His failure to master himself had 
brought disaster, but he knew how to master a ship 
at a time like this. From the instant the Charon 
had struck the reef, he was the power upon that 
storm-swept deck, and whatever hope McNab had 
lay in him. 

In the lantern light, blasted by the wind and in 
the midst of the surging waves, the scene had little 
semblance to reality. It was a mad dream from 
first to last, never to be clearly remembered by the 
survivors: a queer, confused jumble of vivid images 
that could never be straightened out. The head¬ 
light still threw its glare into the sleet-filled night. 
The biting, chill wind swept over the deck and into 
the darkness. The ship settled down like a leaden 
weight. 

Almost at once the four passengers were on deck, 
waiting to take their meager chance in the lifeboats. 
The stress, the raging elements, those angry seas 
that ever leaped higher and nearer, as if coveting 
their mortal lives, most of all the terror such as had 
never previously touched them, affected no two of 
them alike. Of the three women, Bess alone moved 
forward, out of the shelter of the cabin, to be of 
what aid she could. Her drawn, white face was 


105 


The Isle of Retribution 

oddly childlike in the lantern light. Mrs. Harden- 
worth had been stricken and silenced by the nearing 
visage of death; Lenore, almost unconscious with 
terror, made strangling, sobbing sounds that the 
wind carried away. And in this moment of infinite 
travail Ned Cornet felt his manhood stirring within 
him. 

Perhaps it was merely instinct. It is true that 
men of the most abandoned kind often show star¬ 
tling courage and nobility in a crisis. The reason 
is simply that the innate virtue of the race, a light 
and a glory that were implanted in the soul when the 
body was made in the image of its Maker, comes to 
the surface and supersedes the base impulses of de¬ 
generacy. There is no uneven distribution of that 
virtue: it is as much a part of man as his hands or 
his skull; and the difference between one man and 
another lies only in the degree in which it is devel¬ 
oped and made manifest and put in control over the 
daily life. Perhaps the strength that rose in Ned 
was merely the assertion of an inner manhood, 
wholly stripped of the traits that made him the in¬ 
dividual he was, — nothing that would endure, 
nothing that portended a change and growth of 
character. But at least the best and strongest side 
of him was in the ascendency to-night. The dan¬ 
ger left him cool rather than cost him his self-con¬ 
trol. The seeming imminence of death steadied 
him and nerved him. 

Bess saw him under the lantern light, and he was 
not the man who had cursed her at the door of her 
room. For the moment all things were forgotten 



106 


The Isle of Retribution 

except this. Likely the thing he had spoken would 
come true, now. Perhaps he would get his wish. 
For one interminable instant in which her heart 
halted in her breast — as in death — sea and wind 
and storm ceased to matter. 

Ned came up, and Knutsen’s cold gaze leaped 
over his face. “ Help me here,” he commanded. 
“ McNab, you help Forest and Julius launch the 
larger boat.” 

There was not much launching to do. Waves 
were already bursting over the deck. Knutsen 
turned once more. 

“We want four people in each boat,” he directed 
sharply. “ Cornet, you and I and Miss Harden- 
worth in this one. The other girl will have to get 
in here too. The other boat’s slightly larger — 
Mrs. Harden worth, get in with McNab, Forest, 
and Julius.” 

Bess shook herself with difficulty from her rev- 
ery. This was no time for personal issues, to 
hearken to the voices of her inmost heart when the 
captain was shouting through the storm. The only 
issues remaining now were those of deliverance or 
disaster, life or death. Even now the white hands 
of the waves were stretching toward her. Yet this 
terrible reality did not hold her as it should. In¬ 
stead, her thoughts still centered upon Ned: the 
danger was always Ned’s instead of her own; it was 
Ned’s life that was suspended by a thread above the 
abyss. It was hard to remember herself: the in¬ 
stinct of self-preservation was not even now in the 
ascendency. 



107 


The Isle of Retribution 

There is a blasting and primitive terror in any 
great convulsion of the elements. These are man’s 
one reality, the eternal constant in which he plights 
his faith in a world of bewildering change: the air 
of heaven, the sky of stars, the unutterable expanse 
of sea. His spirit can not endure to see them in 
tumult, broken forth from the restraint of law. 
Such sights recall from the germ-plasm those first 
almighty terrors that were the title page of con¬ 
scious life; and they disrupt quickly the mastery 
that mind, in a thousand-thousand years, has gained 
over instinct. Yet for herself Bess was carried out 
from and beyond the terror of the storm. She had 
almost forgotten it: it seemed already part of the 
natural system in which she moved. She was 
scarcely aware that the captain had shouted to make 
himself heard; that she must needs shout to answer 
him: it was as if this were her natural tone of voice, 
and she was no more conscious of raising it above 
the bellow of the storm than are certain fisherfolk, 
habitants of wave-swept coasts, when they call one 
to another while working about their nets. 

The reason was simply that she was thinking too 
hard about Ned to remember her own danger, and 
thus terror could not reach her. It can never curse 
and blast those who have renounced self for others; 
and thus, perhaps, she had blundered into that great 
secret of happiness that wise men have tried to teach 
since the world was new. Perhaps, in the midst of 
stress and travail, she had glimpsed for an instant 
the very soul of life, the star that is the hope and 
dream of mankind. 


108 


The Isle of Retribution 


But while she had forgotten her own danger, she 
was all too aware of the promptings of her own 
heart. The issue went farther than Ned’s life. It 
penetrated, in secret ways, the most intimate depths 
of her relations with him. It was natural at such 
a time that she should remember Ned’s danger to 
the exclusion of her own. The strangeness of that 
moment lay in the fact that she also remembered his 
wishes and his words. She could not forget their 
last scene together. 

“ Put Mrs. Hardenworth in your boat, so she and 
Lenore can be together,” she told Captain Knutsen. 
“ I’ll get in the other.” 

The captain did not seem to hear. He continued 
to shout his orders. In the work of lowering the 
lifeboat he had cause to lift his lantern high, and for 
a moment its yellow gleam was bright upon Bess’s 
drawn, haggard face. Farther off it revealed Ned, 
white-faced but erect in the beat of the storm. 

In one instant’s insight, a single glimpse between 
the storm and the sea, he understood that she was 
taking him at his word. For some reason beyond 
his ken — likely beyond hers, too — she had asked 
to be put in McNab’s boat so that his wish he had 
spoken in anger at the door of her stateroom might 
come true. How silly, how trivial he had been! 
Those angry words had not come from his heart: 
only from some false, superficial side of him that 
was dying in the storm. He had never dreamed 
that she would take them seriously. They were the 
mere spume of a child that had not yet learned to be 
a man. 



109 


The Isle of Retribution 

“ Get in with us,” he said shortly. “Don’t be 
silly — as I was.” Then, lest she should mistake 
his sentiment: “ Mrs. Hardenworth is twice your 
weight, and this boat will be overloaded as it is.” 

The girl looked at him quietly, nodding her head. 
If he had expected gratitude he was disappointed, 
for she received the invitation as merely an actuality 
of her own, immutable destiny. Indeed the wings 
of destiny were sweeping her forward, her life still 
intertwined with his, both pawns in the vast, in¬ 
scrutable movement of events. 

He helped her into the dory. Julius, who at the 
captain’s orders had been rifling the cabins, threw 
blankets to her. Then tenderly, lending her his 
strength, Ned helped Lenore over the wind-swept 
deck into the bow seat of the lifeboat, nearest to the 
seat he would take himself. “ Buck up, my girl,” 
he told her, a deep, throbbing note in his voice. 
“ I’ll look after you.” 

Already the deck was deserted. The dim light 
showed that the larger dory, containing McNab, 
Forest, Julius, and Mrs. Hardenworth, had already 
been launched. There was no sign of them now. 
The darkness and the storm had already dropped 
between. They could not hear a shout of directions 
between the three men, not a scream of fear from 
the terrified woman who was their charge. 

It was as if they had never been. Only the 
Charon was left — her decks awash and soon to dive 
and vanish beneath the waves — and their little 
group in the dim gleam of the lantern. Ivnutsen 
and Ned took their places at the oarlocks, Ned 




110 


The Isle of Retribution 

nearer the bow, Knutsen just behind. A great 
wave seemed to catch them and hurl them away. 

Could they live in this little boat on these tumul¬ 
tuous seas ? Of course the storm was nothing com¬ 
pared to the tempests weathered successfully by 
larger lifeboats, but it held the utmost peril here. 
Any moment might see them overwhelmed. The 
least of those great waves, catching them just right, 
might overturn them in an instant. 

Already the Charon was lost in the darkness, just 
as the other lifeboat had been lost an instant before. 
Not even Knutsen could tell in what direction she 
lay. Still the waves hurried them along. The 
chill wind shrieked over them, raging that they 
should have dared to venture into its desolate do¬ 
mains. 

Could they live until the morning? Wouldn’t 
cold and exposure make an end to them in the long, 
bitter hours to come? The odds looked so uneven, 
the chances so bitterly long against them. Could 
their little sparks of being, the breath of life that 
ever was so wan and feeble, the little, wondering 
moment of self-knowledge that at best seemed only 
the fabric of a dream — could these prevail against 
the vast, unspeakable forces of the North? 
Wouldn’t the spark go out in a little while, the 
breath be blown away on the wings of the wind, the 
self-light burn down in the gloom? At any mo¬ 
ment their fragile boat might strike another sub¬ 
merged reef. There was no light to guide them 
now. They were lost and alone in an empty ocean, 
helpless prey to the whims of the North. 


Ill 


The Isle of Retribution 

The pillars of their strength had fallen. Man’s 
civilization that had been their god was suddenly 
shown as an empty idol, helpless to aid them now. 
The light, the beauty, the strong cities they had 
loved had no influence here: seemingly death itself 
could not make these things farther distant, less 
availing. For the first time since they were born 
Ned and Lenore were face to face with life, and 
also with the death that shadows life. For the first 
time they knew the abject terror of utter helpless¬ 
ness. There was nothing they could do. They 
were impotent prey to whatever fate awaited them. 
Captain Ivnutsen, mighty of frame, his blood surg¬ 
ing fiercely through the avenues of his veins, and 
Bess, schooled to hardship, were ever so much better 
off than they. They were better disciplined, 
stronger in misfortune, better qualified to meet dan¬ 
ger and disaster. For no other reason than that — 
holding respect for these northern seas — they were 
more warmly dressed, their chances were better for 
ultimate survival. 

But what awaited them when the night was done? 
How slight was the chance that, in this world of 
gray waters, they would ever encounter an inhab¬ 
ited island. It was true that islands surrounded 
them on all sides, but mostly they were but wastes 
of wind-swept tundra, not one in four having hu¬ 
man habitations. Mostly the islands were large, 
and such habitations as there might be were scat¬ 
tered in sheltered valleys along the shore, and it was 
wholly probable that the little boat could pass and 
miss them entirely. They couldn’t survive many 




112 The Isle of Retribution 

days on these wintry waters. The meager supplies 
of food and the jugs of water in the lifeboats would 
soon be exhausted, and who could come to their aid? 
Which one of Ned’s friends, wishing him such a 
joyous farewell at the docks, would ever pause in 
his play one moment to investigate his fate? 

A joy-ride! There was a savage irony in the 
thought of the holiday spirit with which he had 
undertaken the expedition. And the voices he had 
heard out of the sea had evidently told him true 
when they had foretold his own death. For all his 
natural optimism, the odds against him seemed too 
great ever to overcome. And there was but one 
redeeming thought, — a thought so dimly discerned 
in the secret mind of the man that it never fully 
reached his conscious self; so bizarre and strange 
that he could only attribute it to incipient delirium. 
It was simply that he had already fortified himself, 
in some degree, to meet the training camp there¬ 
after! 

The journey through the gray, mysterious seas, 
the nearing heart of nature, most of all to-night’s 
disaster had, in some small measure, given him 
added strength. It was true that his old conceit 
was dying in his body. His old sense of mastery 
over himself and over life was shown as a bitter de¬ 
lusion: rather he was revealed as the helpless prey 
of forces beyond even his power to name. This 
self-centered man, who once had looked on life from 
the seats of the scornful, felt suddenly incompetent 
even to know the forces that had broken him down. 
Yet in spite of all this loss, there was something 



113 


The Isle of Retribution 

gained. Instead of false conceit he began to sense 
the beginnings of real self-mastery. For all his 
terror, freezing his heart in his breast, he suddenly 
saw clear; and he knew he had taken an upward 
step toward Life and Light. 

There would not be quite so long a course of 
training for him, in the Hereafter. He could go 
through and on more quickly on account of these 
past days. There was a way through and out — his 
father had told him that — and it wasn’t so far 
distant as when he had first left home. With death 
so close that he could see into its cavernous eyes, 
such was Ned’s one consolation as the craft drifted 
before the wind. 

The terror that was upon him lifted, just an in¬ 
stant, as he bent to hear what Lenore was trying 
to tell him. Lenore was his love and his life, the 
girl to whom he had plighted his troth, and his first 
obligation was to her. He must see to her first. 

“ I’m cold,” she was sobbing. “ I’m freezing to 
death. Oh, Ned, I’m freezing to death.” 

Of course it wasn’t true. Chill though the night 
was, the temperature was still above freezing, and 
the blankets about her largely protected her from 
the biting winds. She was chilled through, how¬ 
ever, as were the other three occupants of the craft; 
and the fear and the darkness were themselves like 
ice in her veins. Ned’s hands were stiff, but he man¬ 
aged to remove one of his own blankets and wrap it 
about the shoulders of the girl. The boat lurched 
forward, sped by the waves and the wind. 

The night hours passed over the face of the sea. 




114 


The Isle of Retribution 


The wind raged through the sky, biting and bitter 
for all their warm wraps. It was abating, now, the 
waves were less high; but if anything its breath 
was more chill as the hour drew toward dawn. The 
wind-blown sleet swept into their faces. 

Both girls sought refuge in troubled sleep. Ned 
sat with his arms about Lenore, giving her what 
warmth he could from his own body. Bess was hud¬ 
dled in her seat. Could their less rugged consti¬ 
tutions stand many hours of such cold and expo¬ 
sure? It was a losing game, already. The North 
was too much for them. Life is a fragile thing at 
best: a few hours more might easily spell the end. 

But that hour saw the return of an ancient mys¬ 
tery, carrying back the soul to those gray days 
when the earth was without form, and void. Dark¬ 
ness had been upon the face of the waters, but once 
more it was divided from the day. 

Even here, seemingly at the edge of the world, 
the ancient miracle did not fail. A grayness, like 
a mist, spread slowly; and the curtains of darkness 
slowly receded. The storm was abating swiftly 
now; and the dawn broke over an easily rolling sea. 

Captain Ivnutsen, who had sat so long in one 
position — his gaze fastened on one point of the 
horizon — that he gave the impression of being un¬ 
conscious, suddenly started and pointed his hand. 
His voice, pitched to the noise of the storm, roared 
out into the quiet dawn. 

“ Land! ” he shouted. “ We’re coming to land!” 


XII 


None of the other three in the lifeboat could 
make out the little, gray line on the horizon that 
Captain Knutsen identified as land. Ned, who had 
been wide awake, prayed that he was not mistaken, 
yet could not find it in his heart to believe him. 
Bess and Lenore both started out of their sleep, 
and the former turned her head wearily, a wan 
smile about her drawn lips. 

“Row, man, row!” Knutsen called happily to 
Ned. “ The only way we can save that girl from 
collapse is to get her to a fire.” His own oars 
dipped, and his powerful back bent to the task. 

So the issue had got down to that! Ned knew 
perfectly well that Lenore was the girl meant; in 
spite of the added blanket, she had fared worse than 
Bess. Perhaps she had less vitality: perhaps she 
had not met the night’s adversity with the same 
spirit. Ned was not an expert oarsman, but it was 
ever to his credit that he gave all his strength to 
the oars. And he found to his joy that the night’s 
adventure had left it largely unimpaired. 

With the waves and the wind behind them, Knut¬ 
sen saw the gray line that was the island slowly 
strengthen. The time came at last, when his weaker 
arms were shot through with burning pain, that 
Ned could also make it out. It was still weary 
miles away. And there was still the dreadful prob- 


116 


The Isle of Retribution 

ability — three chances out of four — that it was 
uninhabited by human beings. 

And death would find them quickly enough if 
they failed to find human habitations. For all 
Knutsen’s prowess, for all that he was so obviously 
a man of his hands, Ned couldn’t see any possi¬ 
bility of sustaining life on one of the barren, wind¬ 
swept deserts for more than a few days at most. 
They had no guns to procure meat from the wild: 
their little stores of food would not last long. The 
cold itself, though not now severe, would likely 
master them quickly. Even if they could find fuel, 
they had no axe to cut it up for a fire. In all prob¬ 
ability, they couldn’t even build a fire in the snow 
and the sleet. 

The stabbing pain in his arms was ever harder 
to bear. He was paying the price for his long 
pampering of his muscles. The time soon came 
when he had to change his stroke, dipping the oars 
at a cheating’ angle. Even if it were a matter of 
life and death to Lenore he couldn’t hold up. He 
couldn’t stand the pace. Ivnutsen, however, still 
rowed untiringly. 

Soon the island began to take shape, revealing 
itself as of medium size in comparison with many 
of the islands of Bering Sea, yet seemingly large 
enough to support a kingdom. The gray line they 
had seen first revealed itself as a low range of 
mountains, bare and wind-swept, extending the full 
length of the island. What timber there was — 
meager growths of Sitka spruce and quivering 
aspen — appeared only on some of the south slopes 


The Isle of Retribution 117 

of the hills and in scattered patches on the valley 
floor. 

In the gray light of dawn the whole expanse was 
one of unutterable desolation. Even the rapture 
that they had felt at deliverance from the sea was 
some way stifled and dulled in the brooding despair 
that seemed to be its very spirit. They had passed 
many bleak, windy islands on the journey; but none 
but what were gardens compared to this. Ned tried 
to rouse himself from a strange apathy, a sudden, 
infinite hopelessness that fell like a shadow over 
him. 

Likely enough it was just a mood with him, 
nothing innate in the island itself. Probably his 
own fatigue was playing tricks on his imagination. 
Yet the solid earth seemed no longer familiar. It 
was as if he had passed beyond his familiar world, 
known to his five senses and firm beneath his feet, 
and had come to an eerie, twilight land beyond 
the horizon. It was so still, lying so bleak and gray 
in the midst of these endless waters, seemingly so 
eternally isolated from all he had known and seen. 
The physical characteristics of the island enhanced, 
if anything, its mysterious atmosphere. The mossy 
barrens that comprised most of the island floor, the 
little, scattered clumps of timber, the deep valleys 
through which the shining streams ran to the sea, 
the rugged, shapeless hills beyond, each real in it¬ 
self, combined to convey an image of unreality. 
Over it all lay the snow. The whole land was swept 
with it. 

It was evidently the kingdom of the wild. It 


118 


The Isle of Retribution 


was the home of caribou and bear, fox and wolver¬ 
ine rather than men. And the dreadful probability 
was ever more manifest that the island contained 
not a single hearth, a single Indian igloo in which 
they might find shelter. 

The place seemed to be utterly uninhabited by 
human beings. The white shore was nearing now, 
the craft had reached the mouth of a large harbor 
formed by the emptying waters of a small river; 
and as yet the voyagers could not make out a single 
roof, a single canoe on the shore. Knutsen peered 
with straining eyes. 

“ It looks bad,” he said tonelessly. “ If there was 
a village here it ought to be located at the mouth 
of that river. It’s the logical place for a camp. 
They always stay near the salmon.” 

Straining, Ned suddenly saw what seemed to him 
a manifestation of human inhabitants. There were 
clearly pronounced tracks, showing dark against 
the otherwise unbroken snow, leading from the sea 
to a patch of heavy forest a quarter of a mile back 
on the island. He pointed to them, his eye kindling 
with renewed hope. 

But Knutsen shook his head. “ I can’t tell from 
here. They might be animal tracks.” 

The canoe pushed farther into the harbor. The 
roll of the waves was ever less, and the boat rode 
evenly on almost quiet water. They would know 
soon now. They would either find safety, or else 
their last, little hope would go the way of all the 
others. Surely they could not live a day unaided 
in this bleak, desolate land. 


119 


The Isle of Retribution 

But at that instant Bess, who had sat so quiet 
that her companions had thought her asleep, ut¬ 
tered a low cry. For all its subdued tone, its living 
note of hope and amazement caused both men to 
turn to her. Her white face was lifted, her blue 
eyes shining, and she was pointing to the fringe of 
timber at the end of the trail in the snow. 

“ What is it? ” she asked in a low tone. “ Isn’t 
it a man? ” 

Her keen eyes had beheld what Knutsen’s had 
missed — a dark form half in shadow against the 
edge of the scrub timber. For all that it was less 
than a quarter of a mile distant, both men had to 
strain to make it out. The explanation lay partly 
in the depths of the surrounding shadows; partly 
in the fact that the form was absolutely without 
motion. It is an undeniable fact that only moving 
figures are quickly discernible in the light and 
shadow of the wild places: thus the forest creatures 
find their refuge from their enemies simply by 
standing still and so remaining unobserved. The 
thing at the timber edge had evidently learned this 
lesson. In its dimness and obscurity it suggested 
some furtive creature native to the woods. 

Yet, for all its lack of motion, this was unmis¬ 
takably a living being. It was not just an odd- 
shaped stump, a dark shadow under tree limbs such 
as so often misleads a big-game hunter. The brain 
seemed to know it, without further verification by 
the senses. Bess had said it was the form of a 
man, and the more intent their gaze, the more prob¬ 
able it seemed that she was right. The fear that 


120 


The Isle of Retribution 


had oppressed Knutsen that it might be merely the 
form of some one of the larger forest creatures — 
perhaps a bear, standing erect, or a caribou facing 
them—was evidently groundless. It was a man, 
and he was plainly standing motionless, fully aware 
of and watching their approach. 

Yet the atmosphere of vagueness prevailed. He 
was so like a woods creature in the instinctive way 
he had taken advantage of the concealment of the 
shadows. It was a wonder that Bess had ever ob¬ 
served him. And now, drawing closer, his propor¬ 
tions seemed to be considerably larger than is cus¬ 
tomary in the human species. Now that his outline 
grew plain, he loomed like a giant. There is noth¬ 
ing so deceptive, however, as the size of an object 
seen at a distance in the wilderness. The degree 
of light, the clearness of the atmosphere, the nature 
of the background and surroundings all have their 
effect: often a snow-hare looks as big as a fox or a 
porcupine as large as a bear. Ned, sharing none 
of Knutsen’s inner sense of unrest, yielding at last 
to the rapture of impending deliverance, raised his 
arms and shouted across the waters. 

“ I want to be sure he sees us,” he explained 
quickly. 

Knutsen strove to rid himself of the unwonted 
dismay that took hold of him. A deep-buried sub- 
consciousness had suddenly manifested itself within 
him, but the messages it conveyed were proven 
ridiculous by his own good sense. It was the first 
time, however, that this inner voice had ever led 
him astray. Surely this was deliverance, life in- 



121 


The Isle of Retribution 

stead of what had seemed certain death, yet he was 
oppressed and baffled as he had never been in his 
life before. 

It was soon made plain that the man had caught 
Ned’s signal. He lifted his arm, then came walk¬ 
ing.down toward the water’s edge. Then Knutsen, 
who until now had rowed steadily, paused with his 
paddles poised in the air. 

“ It’s not an Indian,” he breathed quickly. Ned 
turned to look at him in amazement, yet not 
knowing at what he was amazed. “ It’s a white 
man! ” 

“ Isn’t that all the better? ” Ned demanded. 
“ God knows I’m glad to see any kind of a man.” 

After all, wasn’t that good sense? Trapping, 
fox-farming, any one of a dozen undertakings 
took white men into these northern realms. Con¬ 
quering his own ridiculous fears — fears that par¬ 
took of the nature of actual forewarnings — 
Knutsen drove his oars with added force into the 
water. The boat leaped forward: in a moment 
more they touched the bank. 

Their deliverer, a great blond man seemingly of 
Northeastern Europe, was already at the water’s 
edge, watching them with a strange and inexpli¬ 
cable glitter in gray, sardonic eyes. He was a 
mighty, bearded man, clothed in furs; already he 
was bent, his hands on the bow of the boat. Al¬ 
ready Ned was climbing out upon the shore. 

Partly to remove the silly dismay that had over¬ 
whelmed him, partly because it was the first 
thought that would come to the mind of a wayfarer 



122 


The Isle of Retribution 


of the sea, Knutsen turned with a question. “ What 
island is dis? ” he asked. 

The stranger turned with a grim, meaning smile. 
“ Hell,” he answered simply. 

Both Ned and Knutsen stood erect to stare at 
him. The wind made curious whispers down 
through the long slit of the river valley. “ Hell? ” 
Knutsen echoed. “ Is dat its name-” 

“ It’s the name I gave it. You’ll think it’s that 
before you get away.” 



XIII 


The stranger’s voice was deep and full, so far- 
carrying, so masterful, that it might have been the 
articulation of the raw elements among which he 
lived, rather than the utterance of human vocal 
chords. It held all his listeners; it wakened Lenore 
from the apathy brought by cold and exposure. 
They had wondered, at first, that a member of the 
white race should make his home on this remote and 
desolate isle, but after they had heard his voice they 
knew that this was his fitting environment. If any 
man’s home should be here, in this lost and snowy 
desert, here was the man. 

The background of the North was reflected in 
his voice. It was as if he had caught its tone from 
the sea and the wild, through long acquaintance 
with them. It was commanding, passionate, and 
yet, to a man of rare sensitiveness, it would have 
had an unmistakable quality of beauty; at least, 
something that is like beauty and which can be 
heard in many of Nature’s voices: the chant of the 
wolf pack on the ridge, or even certain sounds of 
beating waves. The explanation was simply that 
he had lived so long in the North, he was so intrin¬ 
sically its child in nature and temperament, 
that it had begun to mold him after its own raw 
forces. The fact that his voice had a deeply sar¬ 
donic note was wholly in character. The North, 


124 The Isle of Retribution 

too, has a cruel, grim humor that breaks men’s 
hearts. 

His accent was plainly not that of an American. 
He had not been born to the English tongue; very 
plainly he had learned it, thoroughly and labori¬ 
ously. His own tongue still echoed faintly in the 
way he mouthed some of his vowels, and in a dis¬ 
tinct purring note, as of a giant cat, in his softer 
sounds. 

Ned observed these things more in an inner mind, 
rather than with his conscious intelligence. Out¬ 
wardly he was simply listening to what the man 
said. The note of dimness and unreality was wholly 
gone now r . The voice was indescribably vivid; the 
man himself was compellingly vivid too. It was 
no longer to be wondered at that he had appeared 
of such gigantic proportions when they had seen 
him across the snow. In reality he was a giant of 
a man, about six feet and a half in height, huge of 
body, mighty of arm and limb, weighing, stripped 
down to muscle and sinew, practically three hun¬ 
dred pounds. Beside him, Knutsen no longer gave 
the image of strength. 

Even in his own city, surrounded by the civiliza¬ 
tion that he loved, Ned couldn’t have passed this 
man by with a casual glance. In the first place 
there is something irresistibly compelling about 
mere physical strength. The strength of this man 
beside the sea seemed resistless. It was to be seen 
in his lithe motions; his great, long-fingered, big- 
knuckled hands; in the lurch of his shoulders; in 
his great thighs and long, powerful arms. He was 




125 


The Isle of Retribution 

plainly, as far as age went, at the apex of his 
strength, — not over forty-one, not less than thirty- 
eight. He drew up the boat with one hand, reach¬ 
ing the other to help Lenore out on to the shore. 

It came about, because he reached it toward Le¬ 
nore, that Ned noticed his hand before ever he 
really took time to study his face. It was a mighty, 
muscular hand, — a reaching, clasping, clenching, 
killing hand. It crushed the lives from things that 
its owner didn’t like. On the back and extending 
almost to the great, purple nails was blond, coarse 
hair. 

But it wasn’t mere brute strength that made him 
the compelling personality that he was. There was 
also the strength of an iron purpose, a self-con¬ 
fidence gained by battle with and conquest of the 
raw forces of his island home. Here was a man 
who knew no law but his own. And he was as re¬ 
morseless as the snow that sifted down upon him. 

If Lenore’s thought processes had been the same 
as when she had left her city home, she would have 
been stirred to envy by his garb. There was little 
about him that suggested intercourse with the out¬ 
side world. He was dressed from head to foot in 
furs and skins of the most rare and beautiful kinds. 
His jacket and trousers seemed to be of lynx, his 
cap was unmistakably silver fox. But it came 
about that neither she nor Ned did more than 
casually notice his garb: both were held and darkly 
fascinated by the great, bearded face. 

The blond hair grew in a great mat about his 
lips and jowls. His nose was straight, his eye- 



126 


The Isle of Retribution 


brows heavy, all his features remarkably even 
and well-proportioned. But none of these lesser 
features could be noticed because of the compelling 
attraction of his gray, vivid eyes. 

Ned didn’t know why he was startled, so carried 
out of himself when he looked at them. In the first 
place they were the index of what was once, and 
perhaps still, a lively and penetrating intelligence. 
This island man, however mad he might be, was not 
a mere physical hulk, — an ox with dull nerves and 
stupid brain. The vivid orbs indicated a nervous 
system that was highly developed and sensitive, 
though heaven knew what slant, what paths from 
the normal, the development took. They were not 
the eyes of a man blind to beauty, dull to art. He 
was likely fully sensitive to the dreadful, eerie 
beauty of his own northern home; if anything, it 
got home to him too deeply and invoked in him its 
own terrible mood. They were sardonic eyes too, 
— the eyes of a man who, secure in his own 
strength, knew men’s weaknesses and knew how to 
make use of them. 

Yet none of these traits got down to the real soul 
of the man. They didn’t even explain the wild and 
piercing glitter in the gray orbs. Whatever his 
creed was, he was a fanatic in it. An inhuman zeal 
marked every word, every glance. There is a 
proper balance to maintain in life, a quietude, most 
of all a temperance in all things; and to lose it 
means to pass beyond the pale. This island man 
was irremediably steeped in some ghastly philos¬ 
ophy of his own; a dreadful code of life outside the 



127 


The Isle of Retribution 

laws of heaven and earth. Some evil disease, not 
named in any work on medicine, had distilled its 
dire toxin into his heart. 

There is no law of God or man north of sixty- 
three, — and the thing held good with him. But 
there is devil’s law; and it was the law on which his 
life was bent. 

It was the most evil, the most terrible face that 
any one of these four had ever seen. The art that 
touched him was never true art, the art of the soul 
and the heart, but something diseased, something 
uncanny and diabolical, beyond the pale of life. 
His genius was an evil genius: they saw it in every 
motion, in every line of his wicked face. 

There was no kindly warmth, no sympathy, no 
human understanding either in his voice or his face. 
Plainly he was as remorseless as the remorseless 
land in which he lived. Now, as they looked, his 
hairy hands might have been the rending paws of a 
beast. 

Perhaps it was madness, perhaps some weird ab¬ 
normality that only a great psychologist could 
trace, perhaps merely wickedness without redemp¬ 
tion, but whatever the nature of the disease that 
was upon him it had had a ghastly and inhuman in¬ 
fluence. The heart in his breast had lost the high, 
human attributes of mercy and sympathy. They 
knew in one glance that here was a man that knew 
no restraints other than those prompted by his own 
desires. In him the self-will and resolution that 
carries so many men into power or crime was de¬ 
veloped to the nth power; he was a fitting child 



128 The Isle of Retribution 

of the savage powers of nature among which he 
lived. 

“ Pardon me for not making myself known 
sooner,” he began in his deep, sardonic voice. “ My 
name is Doomsdorf — trapper, and seemingly 
owner of this island. At least I’m the only living 
man on it, except yourselves.” His speech, though 
careless and queerly accented, had no mark of ig¬ 
norance or ill-breeding. “ I told you the island’s 
name — believe me, it fits it perfectly. Welcome 
to it-” 

Ned straightened, white-faced. “ Mr. Dooms¬ 
dorf, these girls are chilled through — one of them 
is near to collapse from exposure. Will you save 
that till later and help me get them to a fire? ” 

For all the creeping terror that was possessing 
his veins, Ned made a brave effort to hold his voice 
steady. The man looked down at him, his lip curl¬ 
ing. “ Pardon my negligence,” he replied easily. 
“ Of course she isn’t used to the cold yet — but that 
will come in time.” He bowed slightly to the shiv¬ 
ering girl on the shore. “If you follow my tracks 
up to the wood, you’ll find my shack — and there’s 
a fire in the stove.” He looked familiarly into her 
face. “You’re not really cold, you know—you 
just think you are. Walk fast, and it will warm 
you up.” 

Ned bent, seized an armful of blankets from the 
boat, then stepped to Lenore’s side. “ The captain 
will help you, Miss Gilbert,” he said to Bess. Then 
he and the golden-haired girl he loved started to¬ 
gether through the six-inch snowfall toward the 






129 


The Isle of Retribution 

woods. Bess, stricken and appalled, but yet not 
knowing which way to turn, took the trail behind 
them. But Ivnutsen still waited on the shore, be¬ 
side the boat. 

He came of a strong breed, and he was known in 
his own world as a strong man. It was part of the 
teaching of that world, and always the instinct of 
such men as he to look fate in the face, never to 
evade it, never to seek shelter in false hope. He 
knew the world better than any of the three who 
had come with him; the menace that they sensed but 
dimly but which dismayed and oppressed them was 
only too real to him. Even now, out of his sight, 
Ned was trying to make himself believe that the 
man was likely but a simple trapper, distorted into 
a demon by the delirium brought on by the dreadful 
night just passed; but Ivnutsen made no such at¬ 
tempt. He saw in Doomsdorf a perfect embodi¬ 
ment of the utter ruthlessness and brutality that 
the Far North sometimes bestows on its sons. 

Knutsen knew this north country. He knew of 
what it was capable, — the queer, uncanny quirks 
that it put in the souls of men. Doomsdorf, in¬ 
credible to Ned and Bess, was wholly plausible to 
him. He feared him to the depths of his heart, yet 
in some measure, at least, these three were in his 
charge, and if worst came to worst, he must stand 
between them and this island devil with his own life. 
He had stayed on the shore after the others had 
gone so that he might find out the truth. 

He was not long in learning. Through some in¬ 
nate, vague, almost inexplicable desire to shelter his 



130 


The Isle of Retribution 


three charges and to spare them the truth, he 
wanted to wait until all three of them had disap¬ 
peared in the wood; but even this was denied him. 
Lenore and Ned, it is true, had already vanished 
into the patch of forest; but Bess seemed to be 
walking slowly, waiting for him. Doomsdorf was 
bent, now, unloading the stores and remaining 
blankets from the canoe; but suddenly, with one 
motion, he showed Ivnutsen where he stood. 

With one great lurch of his shoulders he turned 
over the empty boat and shoved it off into the sea. 
The first wave, catching it, drove it out of reach. 
“ You won’t need that again,” he said. 

With a half-uttered, sobbing gasp that no man 
had heard from his lips before, Ivnutsen sprang to 
rescue it. It was the greatest error of his life. 
Even he did not realize the full might and remorse¬ 
lessness of the foe that opposed him, or he would 
never have wasted precious seconds, put himself at 
a disadvantage by entering the water, in trying to 
retrieve the boat. He would have struck instantly, 
in one absolute, desperate attempt to wipe the dan¬ 
ger forever from his path. But in the instant of 
need, his brain did not work true. He could not 
exclude from his thought the disastrous fallacy 
that all hope, all chances to escape from hell lay 
only in this flimsy craft, floating a few feet from 
him in shallow water. 

In an instant he had seized it, and standing hip- 
deep in the icy water, he turned to face the blond 
man on the shore. The latter roared once with 
savage mirth, a sound that carried far abroad the 


131 


The Isle of Retribution 

snowy desolation; then he sobered, watching with 
glittering eyes. 

“ Let it go,” he ordered simply. His right arm 
lifted slowly, as if in inadvertence, and rested al¬ 
most limp across his breast. His blond beard hid 
the contemptuous curl of his lips. 

“Damn you, I won’t!” Knutsen answered. 
“ You can’t keep us here-” 

“ Let it go, I say. You are the one that’s 
damned. And you fool, you don’t know the words 
that are written over the gates of the hell you’ve 
come to — ‘Abandon hope, ye who enter here! ’ 
You and your crowd will never leave this island till 
you die! ” 

Knutsen’s hand moved toward his hip. In the 
days of the gun fights, in the old North, it had 
never moved more swiftly. In this second of need 
he had remembered his pistol. 

But he remembered it too late. And his hand, 
though fast, was infinitely slow. The great arm 
that lay across Doomsdorf’s breast suddenly flashed 
out and up. The blue steel of a revolver barrel 
streaked in the air, and a shot cracked over the sea. 

Knutsen was already loosed from the bonds that 
held him. Deliverance had come quickly. His 
face, black before with wrath, grew blank; and for 
a long instant he groped impotently, open hands 
reaching. But the lead had gone straight home; 
and there was no need of a second shot. The late 
captain of the Charon swayed, then pitched for¬ 
ward into the gray waters. 



XIV 


Bess had followed the trail through the snow 
dear to the dark edge of the woods when the sound 
of voices behind her caused her to turn. Neither 
Doomsdorf nor Knutsen had spoken loudly. In¬ 
deed, their tones had been more subdued than usual, 
as is often the way when men speak in moments of 
absolute test. Bess had not made put the words: 
only the deep silence and the movements of the 
wind from the sea enabled her to hear the voices at 
all. Thus it was curious that she whirled, face 
blanching, in knowledge of the impending crisis. 

Thereafter the drama on the shore seemed to her 
as something that could not possibly be true. She 
saw in the deep silence Doomsdorf overturn and 
push off the boat, Knutsen’s desperate effort to res¬ 
cue it, the flash of light from the former’s upraised 
pistol. And still immersed in that baffling silence, 
the brave seaman had groped, swayed, then toppled 
forward into the shallow water. 

It was a long time after that the report of the 
pistol reached her ears, and even this was not 
enough to waken her to a sense of reality. It 
sounded dull, far-off, conveying little of the terrible 
thing it was, inadequate to account for the unutter¬ 
able disaster that it had occasioned. Afterward 
the silence closed down again. The waves rolled in 
through the harbor mouth with never a pause. The 


133 


The Isle of Retribution 

dark shadow that lay for an instant on the face of 
the waters slowly sank beneath. The boat drifted 
ever farther out to sea. 

Except for the fact that Doomsdorf stood alone 
on the shore, it might have been all the factless inci¬ 
dent of a tragic dream. The blond man walked 
closer to the water, peering; then the pistol gleamed 
again as he pocketed it. The wind still brushed by, 
singing sadly as it went; and the sleet swept out of 
the clouds. And then, knowing her need, she 
strove to waken the blunted powers of her will. 

She must not yield herself to the horror that en¬ 
croached upon her. Only impotence, only disas¬ 
ter lay that way. She must hold steady, not break 
into hopeless sobs, not fall kneeling in impotent 
appeal. Bess Gilbert was of good metal, but this 
test that had been put upon her seemed to wrench 
apart the fibers of her inmost being. But she won 
the fight at last. 

Slowly she stiffened, rallying her faculties, fight¬ 
ing off the apathy of terror. Presently her whole 
consciousness seemed to sharpen. In an instant of 
clear thought she guessed, broadly, the truth of that 
tragedy beside the sea; that Knutsen had died in a 
desperate attempt to break free from an unspeak¬ 
able trap into which he and his charges had fallen. 
He had preferred to take the chance of death rather 
than submit to the fate that Doomsdorf had in store 
for him. 

Just what that fate was and how it concerned 
herself, Bess dared not guess. She had known a 
deadly fear of Doomsdorf at the first glance; she 


134 


The Isle of Retribution 

had instinctively hated him as she had never hated 
any living creature before; and now she knew that 
this was the most desperate moment of her life. He 
had shown himself capable of any depth of crime; 
and that meant there must be no limit to her own 
courage. She too must take any chance of free¬ 
dom that offered, no matter how desperate; for no 
evil that could befall her seemed as terrible as his 
continued power over her. 

It meant she must work quick. She must not 
lose a single chance. The odds were desperately 
long already: she must not increase them. In an 
instant more he would be glancing about to see if 
his crime were observed. If she could conceal the 
fact that she had witnessed it, he would not be so 
much on guard in the moment of crisis that was to 
come. Her body and soul seemed to rally to 
mighty effort. 

She was already at the edge of the timber. 
Stooping down, she made one leap into its shelter. 
She was none too soon: already Doomsdorf had 
looked back to see if the coast were clear. 

Everything depended on Ned, henceforth. She 
couldn’t work alone. With his aid, perhaps, they 
could destroy this evil power under which they had 
fallen before it could prepare to meet them. 
Doomsdorf’s cabin — a long, log structure on the 
bank of a dark little stream — was only a hundred 
feet distant in the wood. Now that she was out of 
sight of the shore, she broke into a frenzied run. 

She had no desperate plan as yet. In Ned’s 
manhood alone lay her hope: perhaps in the mo- 



135 


The Isle of Retribution 

ment or two before Doomsdorf appeared Ned 
could conceive of some plan to meet him. Perhaps 
there was a rifle in the cabin! 

She fought back the instinct to scream out her 
story from the doorway. At the bidding of an in¬ 
stinct so sure and true that it partook of a quality 
of infallibility, she checked her wild pace before she 
crossed the threshold. Everything depended on 
Ned and the cool, strong quality of Ned’s nerves. 
She must not jeopardize his self-control by burst¬ 
ing in upon him in frenzy, perhaps exciting him to 
such an extent that he would be rendered helpless 
to aid her. She must keep him cool by being cool 
herself. She caught her breath in a curious deep 
gasp, then stepped into the room. 

Then that gasp became very nearly a sob. The 
wav of deliverance was not clear. A wrinkled na- 
tive woman, an Aleut or an Eskimo, who was evi¬ 
dently Doomsdorf’s wife, looked up at her with 
dark inscrutable eyes from the opposite side of the 
room. 

It was a heart-breaking blow to Bess’s hopes. 
The presence of the woman increased, to a dread 
degree, the odds against her. She was ugly, 
brown as leather, heavily built; her face gave no 
sign that human emotion had ever touched her 
heart, yet she was likely a staunch ally of their foe. 

The whole picture went home to her in a glance. 
Lenore was huddled in a chair before the stove, 
yielding herself to the blessed warmth, already 
shaking off the semi-apathy induced by the night's 
chill. But as yet there was no hope in her. She 


136 


The Isle of Retribution 


was shivering, helpless, impotent. Ned bent over 
her, his arms about her, now and then giving her 
sips from a cup of hot liquid that he held in his 
hand. His care, his tender solicitude, struck Bess 
with a sense of unutterable irony. Evidently he 
had no suspicion of the real truth. 

He looked up as Bess entered. Partly because 
the light was dim, partly because he was absorbed 
in the work of caring for Lenore to the exclusion of 
all other thought, he failed to see the drawn look of 
horror on Bess’s face. “ I’ll need a little help here, 
Miss Gilbert,” he said. “ I want to get this girl to 
bed. The night seemed to go harder with her than 
with the rest of us, and rest is the best thing for 
her.” 

Bess almost sobbed aloud. The sound caught in 
her throat, but quickly she forced it back. Ned 
was already himself again; the danger and stress of 
the night had seemingly affected him only so far as 
to enscribe his face with tired lines, to leave him 
somewhat hollow-eyed and drawn. In reality, he 
was the man of cities come again. He was on solid 
earth; food and shelter and warmth were his once 
more; his old self-confidence was surging through 
him with the glow from the stove. He had no ink¬ 
ling of the truth. His mind was far from danger. 

At that instant she knew she must work alone. 
She must give no sign of her own desperation be¬ 
fore this stolid squaw. And yet she almost 
screamed with horror when she realized that any 
second she might hear Doomsdorf’s step on the 
threshold. She glanced about till she located the 


The Isle of Retribution 137 

Russian’s rifle, hung on the wall almost in front of 
the squaw’s chair. 

“ Did you hear a shot? ” she asked. With all the 
powers of her spirit, she kept her voice common¬ 
place, casual. 

“ Yes,” Ned answered. “ It wasn’t anything — 
was it? ” His tone became cold. “Will you 
please give me a little help with Miss Harden- 
worth? ” 

“ It was a bear — Mr. Doomsdorf shot at it with 
his pistol,” she went on in the same casual way. 
She thought it incredible that they would not take 
alarm from the wild beating of her heart. She 
turned easily to the squaw. “ He wants me to 
bring his rifle so he can shoot at it again,” she said. 
“ That’s it — on the wall? ” 

She stepped toward the weapon. Even in her 
own heart she did not know what was her plan of 
action after that gun was in her hands: she had not 
yet given thought to the stress and desperate deed 
that lay before her. She only knew that life, honor, 
everything that mattered in this world depended on 
the developments of the next few seconds. Later, 
perhaps, resistance would be crushed out of her; 
her cruel master would be constantly on guard: in 
this little moment lay her one chance. She knew 
vaguely that if she could procure the weapon, she 
could start down to the shore and meet Doomsdorf 
on the way. Perhaps her nerve would break soon; 
it could not keep up forever under such a strain. 
Thus her whole universe depended on immediate 
action. She must not hesitate now. She must go 




138 


The Isle of Retribution 


any lengths. Her eyes were cold and remorseless 
under her straight brows. 

“ Sure — take him gun,” the squaw answered 
her. 

She was vaguely aware that Ned was watching 
her in amazement. He was speaking too, his voice 
coming from infinitely far off. “ I’m surprised, 
Miss Gilbert,” he was saying with grave displeas¬ 
ure. “ You don’t seem to realize that Miss Har- 
denworth is still in a serious condition. Perhaps 
you will be willing to forget Mr. Doomsdorf’s sport 
for a moment-” 

But Bess hardly heard. Her hands were trem¬ 
bling, waiting for the feel of the steel. Now the 
Indian was getting up and presently was lifting 
down the weapon. But she did not put it at once 
into Bess’s hands. She pushed back the lever, re¬ 
vealing the empty breech. Then Bess saw a slow 
drawing of her lips — a cruel upturning that was 
seemingly as near as she could come to a smile. 

“Sure—take him gun,” she said. “Got any 
shells-? ” 

Bess shook her head. Her heart paused in her 
breast. 

“ Maybe him got shells. He took ’em all out 
when he saw your canoe come in.” 






XY 


If, like her husband, the brown squaw was a 
devotee of cruelty, she must have received great 
satisfaction from the sight of that slender, girlish 
figure standing in the gloom of the cabin. The 
fact that there were no shells in the rifle — other¬ 
wise a desperate agent of escape—seemed nothing 
less than the death of hope. The strength born of 
the crisis departed swiftly from her, and her only 
impulse was to yield to bitter tears. Her erect 
body seemed to wilt, her sensitive lips, so straight 
and firm before, drooped like those of a child in 
some utter, unconsolable tragedy of childhood. It 
was a curious thing how the light died in her eyes. 
All at once they seemed to be at some strange, be- 
low-zero point of darkness, — like black wounds in 
the utter whiteness of her face. Yet the squaw 
gave no sign that she had seen. Her face was im¬ 
passive, that of an imperturbable Buddha that sits 
forever in a far temple. 

Great terror is nothing more or less than tempo¬ 
rary loss of hope. In that moment Bess was find¬ 
ing out what real hopelessness meant, so far as it is 
ever possible for human beings to know. For that 
moment she couldn’t see a rift in the darkness that 
enfolded her. In the first place she felt infinitely 
alone: Knutsen was dead; Lenore still sat yielding 
to self-pity; Ned still extended to her his solicitous 


140 


The Isle of Retribution 


care. The thing went beyond mere fear of death. 
She could conceive of possibilities now wherein 
death would be a thing desired and prayed for; a 
deliverance from a living hell that was infinitely 
worse. The terror that was upon her was incom¬ 
parable with any previous experience of her life. 

Yet her eyes remained dry. Some way, she was 
beyond the beneficence of tears; partly because of 
her terror, partly, perhaps, because the instinct was 
with her vet to hide the truth from Ned and Lenore 
so long as possible. Thus she was not, in the last 
analysis, absolutely bereft of hope. It might be, 
since Ned was a man and she a woman, he would 
never become the prey of Doomsdorf to such a de¬ 
gree as she herself. And now there was no time to 
try to formulate other plans; to seek some other 
gateway of escape; no time more to listen to Ned’s 
complaints of her inattention to Lenore. She 
heard Doomsdorf’s heavy step at the door. 

The man came in, for an instant standing framed 
by the doorway, the light of morning behind him. 
Ned looked up, expecting some inquiry as to his 
own and Lenore’s condition, some word of greeting 
on his lips. It came about, however, that his 
thought fell quickly into other channels. Dooms¬ 
dorf closed the door behind him. 

The , man turned contemptuously to Ned. 
“ What’s the matter? ” he asked. 

Startled and indignant at the tone, Ned instinc¬ 
tively straightened. “ I didn’t say anything was 
the matter. Where’s Knutsen? ” 

“ Knutsen — has gone on. Hell didn’t suit him. 


141 


The Isle of Retribution 

He went against its mandates the first thing. I 
hope it doesn’t happen again — I would hate to 
lose any more of you. I’ve other plans in mind.” 

Ned hardly understood, yet his face went white# 
Partly it was anger because of the unmistakable in¬ 
sult and contempt in Doomsdorf’s tone. Partly it 
was a vague fear that his good sense would not per¬ 
mit him to credit. “ I don’t — I don’t understand, 
I’m afraid,” he remarked coldly. “ We’ll talk it 
over later. At present I want to know where we 
can put this girl to bed. She’s in a serious condi¬ 
tion from her last night’s experience.” 

The lips curled under the great blond beard. 
“ I may put her to bed, all right — if I like her 
looks,” he answered evenly. “ It won’t be your 
bed, either.” 

Appalled, unbelieving, yet obeying a racial in¬ 
stinct that goes back to the roots of time, Ned 
dropped the girl from his arms and leaped to his 
feet. His eyes blazed with a magnificent burst 
of fury, and a mighty oath was at his lips. 
“You-” he began. 

Yet no second word came. Doomsdorf’s great 
body lunged across the room with the ferocity and 
might of a charging bear. His arm went out like a 
javelin, great fingers extended, and clutched with 
the effect of a mighty mechanical trap the younger 
man’s throat. He caught him as he might catch a 
vicious dog he intended to kill, snatching him off his 
feet. Ned’s arm lashed out impotently, and forc¬ 
ing through with his own body, Doomsdorf thrust 
him into the corner. For a moment he battered 





142 The Isle of Retribution 

him back and forth, hammering his head against the 
wall, then let him fall to a huddled heap on the 
floor. 

Lenore’s voice raised in a piercing scream of ter¬ 
ror; but a fiercer instinct took hold of Bess. The 
impulse that moved her was simply that to fight to 
the death, now as well as later. A heavy hammer, 
evidently a tool recently in use by Doomsdorf, lay 
on the window sill, and she sprang for it with the 
strength of desperation. But her hand had hardly 
touched it before she herself was hurled back 
against the log wall behind her. 

The squaw had not sat supine in this stress. 
With the swiftness and dexterity of an animal, she 
had sprung to intercept the deadly blow, hurling 
the girl back by her hand upon the latter’s shoulder. 
If she made any sound at all, it was a single, chat¬ 
tering sentence that was mostly obliterated in the 
sound of battle. And already, before seemingly a 
second was past, Doomsdorf was standing back in 
his place in the center of the room. 

Except for the huddled heap in the blood-spat¬ 
tered corner of the cabin, it was as if it had never 
happened. The squaw was again stolid, moving 
slowly back to her chair; Doomsdorf breathed 
quietly and evenly. The two girls stood staring in 
speechless horror. 

“ I hope there won’t be any more of that,” 
Doomsdorf said quietly. “ The sooner we get 
these little matters straightened out, the better for 
all concerned. It isn’t pleasant to be hammered to 
pieces, is it? ” 


143 


The Isle of Retribution 

\ 

He took one step toward Ned, and Lenore 
started to scream again. But he inflicted no 
further punishment. He reached a strong hand, 
seized Ned’s shoulder, and snatched him to his 
feet. 

“ Don’t try it again,” he advised. “ Here in this 
cabin— on this island — I do and say what I like. 
I don’t stand for any resentment. The next time 
it won’t be so easy, and that will be too bad for 
everybody. You wouldn’t be able to do your 
work.” 

Racked by pain but fully conscious, Ned looked 
into the glittering eyes. It was no longer possible 
to disbelieve in this hairy giant before him. The 
agony in his throat muscles was only too real. And 
the only recourse that occurred to him was one of 
pitiful inadequacy. 

It was a moment of test for Ned, and he knew of 
no way to meet it except as he met such little crises 
as sometimes occurred to him in his native city. 
The only code of life he knew was that he practiced 
in his old life: now was its time of trial. His own 
blood on his hands; the grim, wicked face before 
him should have been enough to convince a man less 
inured in his own creed of self-sufficiency and con¬ 
ceit; yet Ned would not let himself believe that he 
had found his master. 

As a child has recourse to senseless threats, he 
tried to take refuge in his old attitude of superior¬ 
ity. “ I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t 
care to,” he said at last. In pity for him Bess’s 
eyes filled with tears. “ I only know we won’t ac- 


144 


The Isle of Retribution 


cept the hospitality of such men as you. We’ll go 
-— right now.” 

Doomsdorf’s answer was a roaring laugh of 
scorn. Presently he walked to the door and threw 
it wide. 

But he wasn’t smiling when he turned back to 
face them, the morning light on his bearded face. 
The sight of the North through the open door had 
sobered and awed him, as it awes all men who know 
its power. Beyond lay only the edge of the forest 
and the snow-swept barrens, stretching down to a 
gray and desolate sea. 

“ It’s snowing a little, isn’t it? ” he said. “ Just 
the North — keeping its tail up and letting us 
know it’s here. Where, my young friend, do you 
think of going? ” 

“ It doesn’t matter-” 

“ There’s snow and cold out there.” His voice 
was deeply sober. “Death too—sure as you’re 
standing here. A weakling like you can’t live in 
that, out there. None of your kind can stand it — 
they’d die like so many sheep. And as a result you 
have to bow down and serve the man that can! ” 

Ned had no answer. The greatest fear of his 
life was clamping down upon him. 

“ That’s the law up here — that the weak have 
to serve the strong. I’ve beat the North at its own 
game, and it serves me, just as you’re going to serve 
me now. You’re not accepting any hospitality 
from me. You’re going to pay for the warmth of 
this fire I’ve grubbed out of these woods—you’ll 
pay for the food you eat. You can go out there if 




145 


The Isle of Retribution 

you like — if you prefer to die. There’s no boat 
to carry you off. There never will be a boat to 
carry you off.” 

Ned’s breath caught in a gasp. “ My God, you 
don’t mean you’ll hold us here by force! ” 

“ I mean you’re my prisoners here for the rest of 
your natural lives. And you can abandon hope 
just as surely as if this island was the real hell it 
was named for.” 

Quietly, coldly he told them their fate, these 
three who had been cast up by the sea. He didn’t 
mince words. And for all the strangeness of the 
scene — the gray light of the dawn and the snow 
against the window and the noise of the wind with¬ 
out — they knew it was all true, not merely some 
shadowed vista of an eerie dream. 

“ You might as well know how you stand, first as 
last,” he began. “ When you once get everything 
through your heads, maybe we won’t have any more 
trouble such as we had just now. You ought to be 
glad that the seaman—Knutsen, you called him?— 
is sliding around on the sea bottom instead of being 
here with you; he’d be a source of trouble from be¬ 
ginning to end. He’d have been hard to teach, 
hard to master — I saw that in the beginning — 
and he’d never give in short of a fight every morn¬ 
ing and every night. None of you, fortunately, 
are that way. You’ll see how things stack up, and 
we’ll all get along nicely together.” 

He paused, smiling grimly; then with an ex¬ 
plosive motion, pulled back the lid of the stove and 
threw in another log. “ Sit down, why don’t you? ” 





146 The Isle of Retribution 

he invited. “ I don't insist on my servants stand¬ 
ing up always in my presence. You’ll have to sit 
down sometime, you know.” 

Lenore, wholly despondent, sank back in her 
seat. To show that he was still her protector, Ned 
stood behind her, his hands resting on the back of 
her chair. Bess stole to a little rough seat between 
them and the squaw. 

A single great chair was left vacant, almost in 
the middle of the circle. Doomsdorf glanced once 
about the room as if guarding against any possibil¬ 
ity of surprise attack by his prisoners, then sat 
down easily himself. “ Excuse me for not making 
you known to my woman,” he began. “ In fact, I 
haven’t even learned your own names. She is, 
translating from the vernacular, 4 Owl-That-Never- 
Sleeps.’ You won’t be expected to call her that, 
however — although I regret as a general thing 
that the picturesque native names so often undergo 
such laceration on the tongues of the whites. When 
I took her from her village, they gave her to me as 
‘ Sindy.’ You may call her that. It will do as 
good as any — every other squaw from Tin City to 
Ketchikan is called Sindy. It means nothing, as 
far as I know. 

Owl-That-Never-Sleeps,’ however, fits her 
very well. You might make a point of it. And if 
you are interested in the occult sciences, perhaps 
you might explain to me how, when she was a pap- 
poose, her parents could understand her character 
and nature well enough to give her a name that fits 
her so perfectly. I notice the same thing happens 


147 


The Isle of Retribution 

again and again through these northern tribes. 
But I’m wandering off the point. Sindy, you must 
know, speaks English and is second in command. 
What she says goes. Get up and do it on the jump. 

“ You’ll be interested to know that you are on 
one of the supposedly uninhabited islands of the 
Skopin group. Other islands are grouped all 
around you, making one big snow field when the ice 
closes down in winter. I could give you almost 
your exact longitudinal position, but it wouldn’t be 
the least good to you. The population consists of 
we five people — and various bear, caribou, and 
such like. The principal industry, as you will find 
out later, is furs. 

“ There is no need to tell in detail how and why 
I came here — unlike Caliban, I am not a native of 
the place. I hope you are not so deficient as to 
have failed to read ‘ Tempest.’ I find quite an 
analogy to our present condition. Shakespeare is 
a great delight on wintry nights; he remains real, 
when most of my other slim stock of authors fades 
into air. I like ‘ Merry Wives ’ the best of the 
comedies, though — because we have such fine fun 
with Falstaff. Of the tragedies I like Macbeth the 
best and Lear, by far the worst; and it’s a curious 
paradox that I didn’t like the ending of the first 
and did like the second. Macbeth and his lady 
shouldn’t have fallen. They were people with a 
purpose, and purpose should be allowed to triumph 
in art as well as in life. In life, Macbeth would 
have snipped off Macduff’s head and left a dis¬ 
tinguished line. Lear, old and foolish, got just 


I 




148 


The Isle of Retribution 


what was coming to him — only it shouldn’t have 
been dragged over five acts. 

“ But I really must get down to essentials. It’s 
so long since I’ve talked to the outside world that 
I can’t help being garrulous. To begin with — I 
came here some years ago, not entirely by my own 
choice. Of course, not even the devil comes to such 
a hell as this from his own choice. There’s always 
pressure from above.” 

He paused again, hardly aware of the horrified 
gaze with which his hearers regarded him. A star¬ 
tling change had come over him when he spoke 
again. His eyes looked red as a weasel’s in the 
shadowed room; the tones of his voice were more 
subdued, yet throbbing with passion. 

“ I remember gray walls, long ago, in Siberia,” 
he went on slowly and gravely. “ I was not much 
more than a boy, a student at a great university — 
and then there were gray walls in a gray, snow- 
swept land, and gray cells with barred doors, and 
men standing ever on watch with loaded rifles, and 
thousands of human cattle in prison garb. It was 
almost straight west of here, far beyond Bering 
Sea; and sometimes inspectors would come, stylish 
people like yourselves, except that they were 
bearded men of Petrograd, and look at us through 
the bars as at animals in a zoo, but they never in¬ 
terfered with the way things were run! How I 
came there doesn’t matter; what I did, and what I 
didn’t do. There I found out how much toil the 
human back can stand without breaking, one day 
like another, years without end. I knew what it 



149 


The Isle of Retribution 

was to have a taskmaster stand over me with a whip 
— a whip with many tails, with a shot and wire 
twisted into each. I can show you my back now if 
you don’t believe me. I found out all these things, 
and right then there came a desire to teach them 
to some one else. I was an enemy of society, they 
said — so I became an enemy of society in reality. 
Right then I learned a hate for such society and a 
desire to burn out the heart of such weak things as 
you! 

He turned to them, snarling like a beast. His 
voice had begun to rumble like lavas in the bowels 
of the earth. There could be no question as to the 
reality of this hatred. It was a storm cloud over 
his face; it filled his gray eyes with searing fire, 
it drew his muscles till it seemed that the arms of 
his chair, clutched by his hands, would be torn from 
the rounds. To his listeners it was the most ter¬ 
ribly vivid moment of their lives. 

“ I swore an oath then, by the devil himself, that 
if the time ever came that I’d have opportunity, 
I’d show society just what kind of an enemy I was. 
Sometime, I thought, that time would come. What 
made me think so I can’t tell. Sometime I’d pay 
’em back for all they had done to me. 

“ One day the chance came to escape. While 
more cowardly men would have hesitated, I pushed 
through and out. On the way I learned a little 
lesson—that none of the larger creatures of the 
wild die as easily as men. I found out that there is 
nothing more to killing a man that is in your way 
than killing a caribou I want to eat. I didn’t feel 



150 


The Isle of Retribution 


any worse about it afterward. After that I de¬ 
cided I would never compromise with a man who 
was in my way. The other method was too easy. 
Remember it in all our relations to come. 

“ I had to come across here. I couldn’t forever 
escape the hue and cry that was raised. Ultimately 
I landed on this little island — with Sindy and a 
few steel traps. 

“ In this climate we can trap almost the whole 
year round. We can start putting them out in a 
few days more—keep them out clear till June. 
Every year a ship — the Intrepid that you’ve likely 
heard of — touches here to buy my furs — just one 
trip a year — and it leaves here supplies of all kinds 
in exchange. But don’t take hope from that. 
Hope is one thing you want to get out of your 
systems. The captain of the Intrepid and his 
Japanese crew are the only human beings that 
know I live here, except yourself — that know 
there’s a human occupant on this island. On their 
yearly visit I’ll see to it that none of them get a 
sight of you. 

“ Once I was used to working all day from dawn 
to dark, with an armed master on guard over me. 
It isn’t going to be that way from now on. I’m 
going to be the armed master. The next few days 
you’re going to spend building yourselves a shack 
and cutting winter fuel. Then each of you will 
have a trap line — a good stiff one, too. Every day 
you’ll go out and follow your line of traps — bait¬ 
ing, skinning and fleshing, drying the skins when 
you get to the cabins. You’ll know what it really 


151 


The Isle of Retribution 

is to be cold, then; you’ll know what work means, 
too. With you three I expect to triple my usual 
season’s catch, building up three times as fast the 
fortune I need. 

“ All my life I’ve looked forward to a chance to 
give society the same kind of treatment it gave to 
me—and when that fortune is large enough to work 
with, there will be a new dynasty arise in Russia. 
In the meantime, you’re going to get the same 
treatment I did — hard labor for life! You’re go¬ 
ing to have an armed guard over you to shoot you 
down if you show the least sign of mutiny. You’ll 
obey every command and lick my boots if I tell 
you to. I said then, when the chance came, I’d 
grind society down — or any representatives of so¬ 
ciety that came into my power — just as it ground 
me down. This is the beginning of my triumph. 
You, you three — represent all I hated. Wealth — 
constituted authority — softness and ease and 
luxury. I’ll teach you what softness is! You’ll 
know what a heaven a hard bed can be, after a day 
in the wind off Bering Straits. You’ll find out 
what luxury is, too.” His wild laugh blew like a 
wind through the room. “‘ And incidentally, my 
fur output will be increased by three, my final 
dream brought three times nearer. 

“What I want from you I’ll take. You’re in 
hell if there is such a place — and you’ll know it 
plenty soon.” He turned to Ned, his lip curled in 
scorn. “ Your feeble arms over the chair back 
won’t protect that girl if I make up my mind I 
want her. At present you may be safe from that 






152 


The Isle of Retribution 

— simply because some conquests aren’t any pleas¬ 
ure if they’re made with force. If I want either of 
you,” his gaze flashed toward Bess, “ I’m not afraid 
that I’ll have to descend to force to get you. 

“ When I said to abandon hope I meant it. You 
have no boat, and I’ll give you no chance to make 
one. The distance is too great across the ice ever 
to make it through; besides, you won’t be given a 
chance to try. No ships will come here to look for 
you. No matter what wealth and power you repre¬ 
sented down there, you’ll be forgotten soon enough. 
Others will take your place, other girls will reign 
at the balls, and other men will spend your money. 
You will be up here, as lost and forgotten as if 
you were in the real hell you’ll go to in the end. 

“ Even if your doting fathers should send out a 
search party, they will overlook this little island. 
It was just a freak of the currents that you landed 
here — I don’t see yet why you weren’t blown to 
Tzar Island, immediately east of here. When they 
find you aren’t there, and pick up any other life¬ 
boats from your ship that in all probability landed 
there, they’ll be glad enough to turn around and go 
back. Especially if they see your lifeboat floating 
bottom upward in the water! 

“You should never have come to the North, you 
three! Society should never move from the civiliza¬ 
tion that has been built to protect it — otherwise it 
will find forces too big and too cruel to master. 
You’re all weaklings, soft as putty—without the 
nerve of a ptarmigan. Already I’ve crushed the 
resistance out of you. All my life I’ve dreamed 





153 


The Isle of Retribution 

of some such chance as this, and yet you can’t fight 
enough to make it interesting for me. You’ll be 
docile, hopeless slaves until you die.” 

He paused, scanning their pale, drawn faces. 
He turned to Ned first, but the latter was too im¬ 
mersed in his own despair ever to return his stare. 
Lenore didn’t raise her golden head to meet his 
eyes. But before his gaze ever got to her, Bess was 
on her feet. 

“ Don’t be too sure of yourself,” she cautioned 
quickly. He looked with sudden amazement into 
her kindling eyes. “ Men like you have gone in the 
face of society before. You’re not so far up here 
that the arm of the law can’t reach you.” 

The blond man smiled into her earnest face. 
“ Go on, my dear,” he urged. 

“ It’s got you once, and it’ll get you again. And 
I warn you that if you put one indignity on us, do 
one thing you’ve said —you’ll pay for it in the end 
— just as you’ll pay for that fiendish crime you 
committed to-day.” 

As her eyes met his, straight and unfaltering, the 
expression of contemptuous amazement died in his 
face. Presently his interest seemed to quicken. It 
was as if he had seen her for the first time, search¬ 
ing eyes resting first on hers, then on her lips, drop¬ 
ping down over her athletic form, and again into 
her eyes. He seemed lost in sinister speculations. 

Something seemed strained, ready to break. The 
four in the little circle made no motion, all of them 
inert and frozen like characters in a dream. And 
then, before that speculative, searching gaze—a 



154 


The Isle of Retribution 


gaze unlike any that he had bent on Lenore — her 
eyes faltered from his. Ned felt a wild, impotent 
fury like live steam in his brain. 

Bess’s little mutiny was already quelled. Her 
blue eyes were black with terror. 


XVI 


Doomsdorf had seemingly achieved his purpose, 
and his prisoners lay crushed in his hands. A fear 
infinitely worse than that of toil or hardship had 
evidently killed the fighting spirit in Bess; Lenore 
had been broken by Doomsdorf s first words. And 
now all the structure of Ned’s life had seemingly 
toppled about him. 

The lesson that Doomsdorf taught had gone 
deep, not to be forgotten in any happier moment 
that life might have in store for him. There was no 
blowing into flame the ashes of his old philosophy. 
It was dead and cold in his breast; no matter what 
turn fate should take, his old conceit and self- 
sufficiency could never come again. He was down 
to earth at last. The game had been too big for 
him. The old Ned Cornet was dead, and only a 
broken, impotent, hopeless thing was left to dwell 
in his battered body. 

He had found the training camp, but it was more 
bitter than ever his father had hinted that it could 
be. Indeed Godfrey Cornet, in those brooding 
prophecies at which his son had laughed, had been 
all too hopeful regarding it. He had said there 
was a way through and on, always there was a way 
through and on; but here the only out-trail was 
one of infinite shadow to an unknown destination. 


156 The Isle of Retribution 

Death— that was the way out. That was the only 
way. 

It was curious how easy it was to think of death. 
Formerly the word had invoked a sense of some¬ 
thing infinitely distant, nothing that could seem¬ 
ingly touch him closely, a thought that never came 
clearly into focus in his brain. All at once it had 
showed itself as the most real of all realities. It 
might be his before another night, before the end 
of the present hour. It had come quick enough to 
Knutsen. The least resistance to Doomsdorf’s will 
would bring it on himself. Many things were lies, 
and the false was hard to tell from the true, but in 
this regard there was no chance for question. 
Doomsdorf would strike the life from him in an 
instant at the first hint of revolt. 

It was wholly conceivable that such a thing could 
occur. Ned could endure grinding toil till he died; 
even such personal abuse as he had received an hour 
or so before might find him crushed and unresist¬ 
ing, but yet there remained certain offenses that 
could not be endured. Ned could not forget that 
both Lenore and Bess were wholly in Doomsdorf’s 
power. A brutal, savage man, it was all too easy 
to believe that the time would come soon when he 
would forget the half-promise he had given them. 
The smoky gaze that he had bent toward Bess 
meant, perhaps, that he was already forgetting it. 
In that case would there be anything for him but 
to fight and die? No matter how great a weakling 
he had been, the last mandate of his honor de¬ 
manded that. And a bitterness ineffable descended 


157 


The Isle of Retribution 

upon him when he realized that even such bravery 
could not in the least help the two girls, — that his 
death would be as unavailing and impotent as his 
life. 

How false he had been to himself and his birth¬ 
right! He had been living in a fool’s paradise, and 
he had fallen from it into hell! Esau sold his birth¬ 
right for a mess of pottage: for less return Ned 
had sold himself into slavery. He had been a mem¬ 
ber of a dominant race, the son of a mighty breed 
that wrested the soil from the wilderness and built 
strong cities on the desolate plains; but he had 
wasted his patrimony of strength and manhood. A 
parlor knight, he had leaned upon his father’s sword 
rather than learning to wield his own; and he had 
fallen vanquished the instant that he had left its 
flashing ring of steel. 

For in this moment of unspeakable remorse, he 
found he could blame no one but himself for the 
disaster. Every year men traversed these desolate 
waters to buy furs from the Indians; he had been 
in a staunch boat, and with a little care, a little 
foresight, the journey could have been made in per¬ 
fect safety. It was a man’s venture, surely; but he 
could have carried through if he had met it like a 
man instead of a weakling. He knew perfectly 
that it was his own recklessness and folly that set 
the cups of burning liquor before Captain Knutsen 
as he stood at his wheel. It was his own unpardon¬ 
able conceit, his own self-sufficiency that made him 
start out to meet the North half prepared, daring 
to disturb its ancient silences with the sound of his 



158 


The Isle of Retribution 

wild revelry; and to live, in its grim desolation, the 
same trivial life he lived at home. He hadn’t even 
brought a pistol. Sensing his weakness and his un¬ 
preparedness, Doomsdorf hadn’t even done him the 
honor of searching him for one. 

Knutsen’s death was on his own head: the life of 
utter wretchedness and hopelessness and insult that 
lay before Lenore and Bess was his own doing, too. 
It wouldn’t compensate to die in their defense, 
merely leaving them continued helpless prey to 
Doomsdorf. He saw now, with this new vision that 
had come to him, that his only possible course was 
to live and do what he coufd in atonement. He 
mustn’t think of himself any more. All his life he 
had thought of nothing but himself; self-love had 
been his curse to the end of the chapter, — and now 
he could not make himself believe but that it had 
been some way intertwined in his love for Lenore. 
He would have liked to give himself credit for that, 
at least — unselfish devotion, these past years, to 
Lenore—but even this stuck in his throat. But 
his love for her would be unbiased by self-love now. 
He would give all of himself now — holding noth¬ 
ing back. 

In spite of his own despair, his own bitter hope¬ 
lessness, he must do what he could to keep hope 
alive in Lenore and Bess. It was the only chance 
he had to pay, even in the most pitiful, slight degree 
for what he had done to them. He must always 
try to make their lot easier, doing their work when 
he could, maintaining an attitude of cheer, living 
the lie of hope when hope seemed dead in his breast. 





159 


The Isle of Retribution 

Ned Cornet was awake at last. He knew him¬ 
self, his generation, the full enormity of his own 
folly, the unredeemed falsehood of his old philos¬ 
ophy. Better still, he knew what lay before him, 
not only the remorselessness of his punishment but 
also his atonement: doing willingly and cheerfully 
the little he could to lighten the burdens of his in¬ 
nocent victims. He could have that to live for, at 
least, doing the feeble little that he could. And 
that is why, when Doomsdorf looked at him again, 
he found him in some way straightened, his 
eyes more steadfast, his lips in a firmer, stronger 
line. 

“ Glad to see you’re bucking up,” he commented 
lightly. 

Ned turned soberly. “ I am bucking up,” he an¬ 
swered. “ I see now that you’ve gone into some¬ 
thing you can’t get away with. Miss Gilbert was 
right; in the end you’ll find yourself laid out by 
the heels.” 

It can be said for Ned, for the reality of his 
resolve, that his words seemed to ring with convic¬ 
tion, giving no sign of the utter despair that was 
in his heart. Of course he was speaking them for 
the ears of Lenore and Bess, in order to encourage 
them. 

“You think so, eh? ” Doomsdorf yawned and 
stretched his arms. “ Just try something — that’s 
all. And since you’re feeling so good, I don’t see 
why you shouldn’t get to work. You can still put 
in a fairly good morning. And you ”—he turned, 
with the catlike swiftness that marked so many of 



160 The Isle of Retribution 

his movements, toward Bess—“what’s your 
name? ” 

“ You just heard him say. Miss Gilbert-” 

“You can forget you are a ‘ Miss.’ You’re a 
squaw out here — and can do squaw’s work. 
What’s your first name? ” 

Bess, in her misery, looked at him with dread. 
“ Bess Gilbert,” she answered quietly. 

“ Bess it will be. Lenore, I think you call the 
other — and Ned. Good thing to know first names, 
since we’ve got an uncertain number of years before 
us. Well, I suggest that all three of you go out 
and see what you can do about wood. You’ll have 
to cut some and split it. I’ve been lazy about lay¬ 
ing in a winter store.” 

Much to his amazement, Ned stood erect, pulled 
down his cap over his brown curls, and buttoned his 
coat. “ I’ll see what we can do,” he answered 
straightforwardly. “ I have, though, one thing to 
ask.” 

“ What is it-” 

“ That you let the two girls take it easy to-day 
— and get warmed through. If you sent them out 
now, weakened as they are, it might very easily 
mean pneumonia and death. It’s to your interest 
to keep them alive.” 

“ It’s to my interest, surely — but don’t rely on 
that to the extent of showing too much independ¬ 
ence. The human body can stand a lot before it 
gives up the ghost. The human voice can do a lot 
of screaming. I know, because I’ve seen. I don’t 
mind running a little risk with human life to get 






161 


The Isle of Retribution 

my way, and I know several things, short of actual 
killing, that go toward enforcing obedience and 
quelling mutiny.” 

Lenore, staring wildly at him, caught her breath 
in a sob. “ You don’t mean-” 

Doomsdorf did not look at her. He still smiled 
down at Ned. “You’ve never felt a knout, have 
you, on the naked back? ” he asked sweetly. “ I 
found out what they were like in Siberia, and with 
the hope of showing some one else, I took one out 
— in my boot. It’s half-killed many a man — but 
I only know one man that it’s completely killed. 
He was a guard — and I found out just how many 
blows it takes. You can stop a hundred — fifty — 
perhaps only ten before that number, and life still 
lingers.” The man yawned again. “ But your re¬ 
quest is granted — so far as Lenore is concerned. 
You can leave her here for me to entertain. Bess 
has spirit enough to talk — she has undoubtedly 
spirit enough to work.” 

Ned, deeply appalled and unspeakably revolted, 
looked to Lenore for directions. Her glorious 
head was on her arms, and she shook it in utter 
misery. “ I can’t go out there now,” she said. 
“ I’ll just die if I do — I’m so cold still, so weak¬ 
ened. I wish I had died out there in the storm.” 

Ned turned once more to Doomsdorf. “ She’s 
telling the truth — I think she simply can’t stand 
to go,” he urged gravely. “ But though she’s abso¬ 
lutely in your power, there are some things even a 
beast can’t do. You just the same as gave me 
your word-” 








162 


The Isle of Retribution 


“ There are things a beast can’t do, but I’m not 
a beast. There’s nothing I can’t do that I want to 
do. I make no promises — just the same, for this 
time, I don’t think you need be afraid. I don’t take 
everything that comes along in the way of a woman. 
I want a woman of thews! ” 

Bess dared not look at him, but she felt the insult 
of his searching gaze. She buttoned her coat 
tight, then stood waiting. An instant later Dooms- 
dorf was holding the door open for her as she went 
to her toil. 


XVII 


There were a number of axes in the little work¬ 
room that comprised one end of the long cabin, and 
Doomsdorf flung three of them over his shoulder. 
“ Right up through here,” he urged, pointing to 
the little hillside behind the cabin. “ Of course I 
can’t let you cut fuel from these trees so close to 
the house. You, as city people, surely know some¬ 
thing about house beautifying. You’ll have to 
carry the wood a little farther — but you won’t 
mind, when you know it’s for the sake of beauty.” 

The snow was noticeably deeper in the two hours 
since they had come. It clung to Ned’s trouser 
legs almost to the knees, soaking through his thin 
walking shoes; and both he and Bess found it some 
degree of labor just to push through it. Dooms¬ 
dorf halted them before one of the half-grown 
spruce. 

“ Here’s a good one,” he commented. “ Just be¬ 
yond is another. You can each take one — cut 
them down with your axes and then hack them into 
two-foot lengths for the stove. Better split each 
length into three pieces — the larger ones, anyway. 
If you have time, you can carry it down to the 
cabin.” 

He swung his axes down from his shoulder. He 
seemed to be handling them with particular care, 
but several seconds elapsed before Ned realized that 


164 


The Isle of Retribution 

the moment had some slight element of drama. 
Heretofore he had been unable to observe that 
Doomsdorf was in the least on guard against his 
prisoners. He had seemingly taken no obvious pre¬ 
cautions in his own defense. It was plain to see, 
however, that he did not intend to put axes into 
the hands of these two foes until he had one ready 
to swing himself. 

He took the handle of the largest axe in his right 
hand; with his left he extended the other two im¬ 
plements, blades up, to Ned and Bess. “ I sup¬ 
pose you know we’ve had no experience-” Ned 

began. 

“ It doesn’t matter. Just be careful the trees 
don’t fall on you. They sometimes do, you know, 
on amateur woodsmen. The rest is plain brute 
strength and awkwardness.” He handed them 
each, from his pocket, a piece of dried substance 
that looked like bark. “ Here’s a piece of jerked 
caribou each — it ought to keep life in your bodies. 
And the sooner you get your wood cut and split, 
the sooner you see any more.” 

Then he turned and left them to their toil. 

Thus began a bitter hour for Ned. He found the 
mere work of biting through the thick trunk with 
his axe cost him his breath and strained his patience 
to the limit. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. He 
did not strike true; the blade made irregular white 
gashes in the bark; his blows seemed to lack power. 
The great, ragged wound deepened but slowly. 

Finally it was half through the trunk, and yet 
the tree stood seemingly as sturdy as ever. Reck- 




165 


The Isle of Retribution 

less from fatigue, he chopped on more fiercely than 
ever. And suddenly, with the grinding noise of 
breaking wood, the tree started to fall. 

And at that instant Ned was face to face with 
the exigency of leaping for his life. The tree did 
not fall in the direction planned. An instant be¬ 
fore, weary and aching and out of breath, Ned 
would have believed himself incapable of swift and 
powerful motion. As that young spruce shattered 
down toward him, like the club of a giant aimed to 
strike out his life, a supernatural power seemed to 
snatch him to one side. Without realization of 
effort, the needed muscles contracted with startling 
force, and he sprang like a distance jumper to 
safety. 

But he didn’t jump too soon or too far. The 
branches of the tree lashed at him as it descended, 
hurling him headlong in the snow. And thereafter 
there were three things to cause him thought. 

One of them was the attitude of Bess, — the girl 
to whom, in weeks past, he had shown hardly decent 
courtesy: the same girl whom in childish fury he 
had cursed the bitter, eventful night just gone. 
Above the roar of the falling tree he heard her 
quick, half-strangled gasp of horror. 

The sound seemed to have the qualities that made 
toward a perfect after-image; because in the silence 
that followed, as he lay in the soft snow, and the 
crash of the fallen tree echoed into nothingness, it 
still lingered, every tone perfect and clear, in his 
mind’s ear. There was no denying its tone of in¬ 
effable dismay. Evidently Bess was of a forgiving 



166 


The Isle of Retribution 

disposition; in spite of his offense of the past night 
she had evidently no desire to see him crushed into 
jelly under that giant’s blow. Some way, it had 
never occurred to him that the girl would harbor 
a kind thought for him again. She had been right 
and he had been wrong; in an effort to serve him 
she had received only his curse, and her present 
desperate position, worse perhaps than either his 
own or Lenore’s, was due wholly to his own folly. 
She had not taken part in the orgy of the night 
before, so not the least echo of responsibility could 
be put on her. Yet she didn’t hate him. She had 
cried out in real agony when she thought he was 
about to die. 

He thought upon this matter as he lay in the soft 
snow whence the descending branches of the tree 
had hurled him. He didn’t have many seconds to 
think about it. Further eccentricity on the part of 
Bess swiftly gave him additional cause for reflec¬ 
tion. She had not only cried out, but she ran to 
him with the speed of a deer. She was by his side 
almost before he was aware of the scope of the 
accident. 

The sobbing cry he had heard could very likely 
be attributed merely to that instinctive horror that 
a sensitive girl Avould feel at an impending tragedy, 
wholly apart from personal interest in the victim; 
but for a few seconds Ned was absolutely at a loss 
to explain that drawn, white, terrified face above 
him. In fear for him, Bess was almost at the point 
of absolute collapse herself. Nor could mere im¬ 
personal horror explain her flying leap to reach 


167 


The Isle of Retribution 

his side, — like a snowbird over the drifts. It 
meant more than mere forgiveness for the terrible 
pass to which he had brought her. In a few seconds 
of clear thinking he thought he saw the truth: that 
even after all that was past Bess still looked to 
him for her hope, that she regarded him still as her 
defense against Doomsdorf; and that his death 
would leave her absolutely bereft. He was a man, 
and she still dreamed that he might save her. 

The result was a quick sense of shame of his own 
inadequacy. It is not good to know oneself a fail¬ 
ure in the face of woman’s trust. Yet the effect of 
the little scene was largely good, for it served to 
strengthen Ned’s resolve to spare the girls in every 
way he could, and by his own feigned hope to keep 
them from despair. Above all, he found an in¬ 
creased admiration for Bess. Instead of a silly 
prude, a killjoy for the party, she had shown her¬ 
self as a sportswoman to the last fiber. She had 
been a friend when she had every right to be an 
enemy; she had shown spirit and character when 
women of lesser metal would have been irremedi¬ 
ably crushed. He was far away now from the old 
barriers of caste. There was no reason, on this 
barren, dreadful isle, why he shouldn’t accept all 
the friendship she would give him and give his own 
in return. 

But this subject was only one of three that sud¬ 
denly wakened him to increased mental activity. 
If he were amazed at Bess, he was no less amazed 
at himself. He had been tired out, hopeless, out of 
wind, hardly able to swing his arms, and yet he had 


168 


The Isle of Retribution 

managed to leap out of seeming certain death. The 
unmistakable inference was that the body in which 
his spirit had dwelt for thirty years had strength 
and possibilities of which hitherto he had been un¬ 
aware. In the second of crisis he had shown a per¬ 
fect coordination of brain and muscle, an accuracy 
of transmission of the brain-messages that were 
conducted along his nerves, and a certain sureness 
of instinct that he had never dreamed he possessed. 
It would have been very easy to have jumped the 
wrong way. Yet he had jumped the right way — 
the only possible way to avoid death — choosing 
infallibly the nearest point of safety and hurling 
himself directly toward it. Perhaps it would have 
been better to have staved where he was, to have 
let the tree crush the life out of him and be done 
with Hell Isle for good, yet a power beyond him¬ 
self had carried him out of danger. The point of¬ 
fered interesting possibilities. Could it be that he 
had had the makings of a man in him all these years 
and had never been aware of it? Could he dare 
hope that this side of him might be developed, in 
the hard years to come, so that he might be better 
able to endure the grinding toil and hardship? The 
thought wasn’t really hope — he didn’t believe that 
hope would ever visit him again — it was only an 
instant’s rift, dim as twilight, in the gloom of his 
despair. The most he could ever hope to do was 
to fortify himself in order to take more and more 
of the girl’s hardship upon his shoulders. 

Thirdly he gave some thought to the matter of 
felling trees. It was a more complex matter than 





169 


The Isle of Retribution 

he had at first supposed. Evidently he had gone 
about it in the wrong way. It would pay to have 
more respect for the woodsman’s science if he did 
not wish to come to an early end beneath a falling 
tree. He might not be so quick to dodge again. 

Bess was staring wide-eyed into his face; and he 
smiled quietly in reassurance. “ Not hurt at all,” 
he told her. Quickly he climbed to his feet. “ See 
that you don’t do the same thing that I did.” 

Delighted that he had not been hurt but a little 
aghast at what heart’s secret she might have re¬ 
vealed in running to his aid, she started to go back 
to her toil. But Ned had already reached some 
conclusions about tree-felling. He walked with 
her to her fallen axe, then inspected the deep cut 
she had already made in her tree. 

“ You’re doing the same thing I did, sure 
enough,” he observed. “ The tree will fall your 
way and crush you. Let me think.” 

A moment later he took his axe and put in a few 
more strokes in the same place. It was the danger 
point, he thought: a deeper cut might fell the tree 
prematurely. Presently he crossed to the opposite 
side, signaled Bess out of danger, and began to 
hack the tree again, making a cut somewhat above 
that started on the other side of the trunk. He 
chopped sturdily; and in a moment the tree started 
to fall, safely and in an opposite direction. 

He uttered some small sound of triumph; but it 
was a real tragedy to have the tree fall against a 
near-by tree and lodge. Again he had failed to 
exercise proper foresight. 


170 


The Isle of Retribution 

There was nothing to do but climb into the ad¬ 
joining tree with his axe and laboriously cut the 
lodged tree away. In the meantime Bess went to 
work on the first tree felled, trimming it of its limbs 
so to cut it into lengths. 

Ned joined her at the work, but long before the 
first tree was cut into fuel, both were at the edge 
of utter exhaustion. The point of fatigue he had 
reached that morning in rowing, when he had rested 
from the sheer inability to take another stroke, was 
already far past. There had been a point, some 
time back, when every muscle of his body had 
throbbed with a burning ache, when pain crept all 
over him like a slow fire, but that too was largely 
passed now. His brain was dulled; he felt baffled 
and estranged as if in a dream. It was more like a 
nightmare now, — his axe swinging eternally in his 
arms, the chips flying, one after another. 

He seemed to move so slowly. Hours were pass¬ 
ing, one after another, and still great lengths of 
the trees remained to cut and split. But they 
couldn’t stop and rest. They dared not return to 
the cabin till the work was done: the brute that 
was their master would be glad of an excuse to lay 
on the lash. They had been taught what mercy to 
expect from him. Here was one reality that their 
fatigue could not blunt: their cruel master waiting 
in the cabin. As the rest of their conscious world 
faded and dimmed he was ever more vivid, ever 
more real. The time soon came when he filled all 
the space in their thoughts. 

For Ned life was suddenly immensely simplified. 



171 


The Isle of Retribution 

All the complexities of his old life had suddenly 
ceased to matter: indeed that had perished from 
his consciousness. The world was forgotten, he had 
no energy to waste in remembering how he had 
come hence, even who he was. From the supreme 
egoist, knowing no world but that of which his own 
ego was the orbit, to a faltering child hardly aware 
of his own identity: thus had Ned changed in a 
single night. The individual who had been Ned 
Cornet had almost ceased to be; and in his place 
was a helpless pawn of a cruel and remorseless fate. 

He knew Fate now. Through the mists of this 
nightmare that was upon him he saw the Jester 
with his bells. And as he looked, the sharp, ironic 
face grew savage, brutal, half-covered with blond 
hair; the motley became a cap of silver fox. But 
this changed too, as his axe swung in the air. Once 
more the face was sharp, but still unutterably ter¬ 
rible to see; but it was livid now, as if sulphurous 
flames were playing upon it. And the foot — he 
saw the foot plain against the snow. It was un¬ 
speakable, filling him with cold horror all his length. 
It was some way cloven and ghastly. 

The vision passed, broken and dissolved by the 
noise of the axe on the tough wood. He knew Fate 
now. He had seen him in all his forms. In his 
folly he had scorned him, taunted him by his in¬ 
solence, had dared to dream that he was greater 
than Fate, immune from his persecution. If this 
torment ended now, he had paid the price. He had 
atoned for everything already if he did not lift the 
axe again. Yet only eternity lay ahead. 


172 The Isle of Retribution 

Doomsdorf had seemed almost incredible to him 
at first. It was as if he couldn’t possibly be true: 
a figment of nightmare that would vanish as soon 
as he wakened. But he was real enough now. 
Nothing was left to him but the knowledge how real 
he was. 

He must not rest, he must not pause till the work 
was done. The fact that Bess had fallen, fainting, 
in the snow, did not affect him; he must swing his 
axe and hew the wood. Day was dying. Grayness 
was creeping in from the sea. It was like the es¬ 
sence of the sea itself, all gray, gray like his dreams, 
gray like the ashes of his hopes. He must finish the 
two trees before the darkness came down and kept 
him from seeing where to sink the blade. Other¬ 
wise it wouldn’t matter — day or night, one year 
or another. Time had ceased to count; seemingly 
it had almost ceased to move. But the knout would 
be waiting, hardened and sharp with wire, if he 
didn’t do his work. Cold fear laid hold of him 
again. 

He did not know that this cold that was upon 
him was not onlv that of fear. His clothes had 
been wet through by perspiration and melted snow, 
and now the bitter winds off the sea were getting 
to him. Still he swung his axe. It was always 
harder to strike true; the tough lengths took 
ever more blows to split. The time soon came 
when he was no longer aware of the blows against 
the wood. The axe swung automatically in his 
arms; even sense of effort was gone from him. 
The only reality that lived in him now, in that 



The Isle of Retribution 173 

misty twilight, was the knowledge that he must get 
through. 

It was too dark to see, now, how much of the 
work remained. The night was cheating him, after 
all. He struck once more at the tough length that 
lay at his feet — a piece at which he had already 
struck uncounted blows. He gave all his waning 
strength to the effort. 

The length split open, but the axe slipped out 
of his bleeding hands, falling somewhere in the 
shadows beyond. He must crawl after it; he didn’t 
know how many more lengths there were to split. 
It was strange that he couldn’t keep his feet. And 
how deep and still was the night that dropped over 
him! 

How long he groped for the axe handle in the 
snow he never knew. But he lay still at last. Twi¬ 
light deepened about him, and the wind wept like 
a ghost risen from the sea. The very flame of his 
life was burning down to embers. 

Thus it came about that Doomsdorf missed the 
sound of his axe against the wood. Swinging a 
lantern, a titantic figure among the snow-laden 
trees, he tramped down to investigate. Bess, semi¬ 
conscious again, wakened when the lantern light 
danced into her eyes. But it took him some little 
time to see Ned’s dark form in the snow. 

The reason was, it was lying behind a mighty 
pile of split fuel. The light showed that only green 
branches, too small to be of value, remained of the 
two spruce. And Doomsdorf grunted, a wonder¬ 
ing oath, deep in his throat. 



174 


The Isle of Retribution 


They had been faithful slaves. Putting his 
mighty arm around them, each in turn, he half car¬ 
ried, half dragged them into the warmth of the 
cabin. 


XVIII 


Ned was spared the misery and despair that 
overswept Doomsdorf’s cabin the first night of his 
imprisonment. His master dropped him on the 
floor by the stove, and there he lay, seemingly with¬ 
out life, the whole night through. Even the sound 
of the wind could not get down into that dim region 
of half-coma where he was: he heard neither its 
weird chant on the cabin roof, or that eerie, sobbing 
song that it made to the sea, seemingly the articula¬ 
tion of the troubled soul of the universe. He did 
not see the snow piling deeper on the window ledge; 
nor sit straining in the dreadful, gathering silence 
of the Arctic night. The promised reward of food 
was not his because he could not get up to take it. 

Yet he was not always deeply insensible. Some¬ 
times he would waken with a knowledge of wrack¬ 
ing pain in his muscles, and sometimes cold would 
creep over him. Once he came to himself with the 
realization that some one was administering to him. 
Soft, gentle hands were removing his wet, outer 
garments, rolling him gently over in order to get 
at them, slipping off his wet shoes and stockings. 
A great tenderness swept over him, and he smiled 
wanly in the lantern light. 

Since he was a child, before the world was ever 
too much with him, no living human being had seen 
him smile in quite this way. It was a smile of utter 


176 The Isle of Retribution 

simplicity, childishly sweet, and yet brave too, — 
as if he were trying to hearten some one who was 
distressed about him. He didn’t feel the dropping 
tears that were the answer to that smile, nor feel 
the heart’s glow, dear beyond all naming, that it 
wakened. To the girl who, scarcely able herself 
to stand erect, had crept from her warm cot to serve 
him, it seemed almost to atone for everything, to 
compensate for all she had endured. 

“ Lenore? ” the man whispered feebly. 

But there was no spoken answer out of the 
shadow at the edge of the lantern light. Perhaps 
there was the faint sound, like a gasp, almost as if 
a terrible truth that was for an instant forgotten 
had been recalled again; and perhaps the adminis¬ 
tering hands halted in their work for one part of 
an instant. But at once they continued to ply 
about him, so strong and capable, and yet so in¬ 
effably gentle. It couldn’t be Lenore, of course. 
No wonder, — Lenore had suffered grievously 
from the events of the past night. In his half-de- 
lirium it occurred to him that it might be his mother. 
There had been times in the past, when his mother 
had come to his bedside in this same way, with this 
same gentleness, during his boyhood sicknesses. 
But he couldn’t remain awake to think about it. 
His wet, clinging clothes had been removed, and 
blankets, already warmed, were being wrapped 
about him. He fell into deep, restful sleep. 

But it ended all too soon. A great hand shook 
him, snatching him into a sitting position, and a 
great, bearded face, unspeakably terrible in the 



177 


The Isle of Retribution 

weird, yellow light of the lantern, showed close to 
his own. “ Up and out,” he was shouting. “ It’ll 
be light enough to work by the time you have break¬ 
fast. Out before I boot you out.” 

He meant what he said. Already his cruel boot 
was drawn back. Ned’s conscious world returned 
to him in one mighty sweep, like a cruel, white light 
bursting upon tired eyes. The full dreadfulness 
of his lot, forgotten in his hours of sleep, was re¬ 
called more vividly than ever. It wasn’t just a 
dream, to be dispersed on wakening. Even yester¬ 
day’s blessed murk of unreality, dimming every¬ 
thing and dulling all his perceptions, was gone now 
that he was refreshed by sleep. His brain worked 
clear, and he saw all things as they were. And the 
black wall of hopelessness seemed unbroken. 

Yet instantly he remembered Lenore. At least 
he must continue to try to shelter her — even to 
make conditions easy as possible for Bess. His 
love for the former was the one happiness of his 
past life that he had left; and he didn’t forget his 
obligation to the latter. Bess was already up, 
building up the fire at Doomsdorf’s command, but 
Lenore, with whom she had slept, still lay sobbing 
on her cot. 

Ned pulled on his clothes, scarcely wondering 
at the fact that they were hanging, miraculously 
dry, back of the stove; and immediately hurried to 
Lenore’s side. He forgot his own aching muscles 
in distress for her; and his arms went about her, 
drawing her face to his own. 

“ Oh, my girl, you mustn’t cry,” he told her, with 


178 


The Isle of Retribution 


a world of compassion in his tone. “ I’ll take care 

of you. Don’t you know I will-? ” 

But with tragic face Lenore drew back from his 
arms. “ How can you take care of me? ” she asked 
with immeasurable bitterness. “ Can you stand 

against that brute-? ” 

“ Hush-!” 

“ Of course you can’t. You’re even afraid to 
speak his name.” 

“ Oh, my dear! Don’t draw away.” The man’s 
voice was pleading. “ I was just afraid he’d take 
some awful punishment from you. Of course I’m 
helpless now-” 

“Then how can you take care of me?” she de¬ 
manded again, for a moment forgetting her despair 
in her anger at him. “ Can you make him let me 
stay in bed, instead of going out to die in this awful 
snow? Death — that’s all there’s here for me. 
And the quicker it comes the better.” 

She sobbed again, and he tried in vain to comfort 
her. “ We’ll come through,” he whispered. “ I’ll 

make everything as light as I can-” 

But she thrust off his caressing hands. “ I don’t 
want you to touch me,” she told him tragically. 
“ You can’t make things light for me, in this living 
hell. And until you can protect me from that man, 
and save me, you can keep your kisses. Oh, why 
did you ever bring me here? ” 

“ I suppose — because I loved you.” 

“You showed it, in taking me into this awful 
land in an unsafe boat. You can keep your love. 
I wish I’d never seen you.” 








179 


The Isle of Retribution 

Just a moment his hands dropped to his sides, 
and he showed her the white, drawn visage of utter 
despair. Yet he must not hold these words against 
her. Surely she had cause for them; perhaps she 
would find him some tenderness when she saw how 
hard he had tried to serve her, to ease her lot. Her 
last words recalled his own that he had spoken to 
Bess aboard the Charon: if he had railed as he had to 
Bess for such little cause, at least he must not blame 
Lenore, even considering the fact of their love, in 
such a moment as this. He had brought her from 
her home and to this pass. Save for him, she would 
be safe in her native citv, not a slave to an inhuman 
master on this godless island. 

He looked down at her steadfastly. “ I can’t 
keep my love,” he told her earnestly. 44 1 gave it 
to you long ago, and it’s yours still. That love is 
the one thing I have left to live for here; the one 
thing that’s left of my old life. I’m going to con¬ 
tinue to watch over you, to help you all I can, to 
do as much of your work as possible; to stand be¬ 
tween you and Doomsdorf with my own life. I’ve 
learned, in this last day, that love is a spar to cling 
to when everything else is lost, the most important 
and the greatest blessing of all. And I’m not going 
to stop loving you, whether you want me to or not. 
I’m going to fight for you — to the end.” 

“ And in the end I’ll die,” she commented bit¬ 
terly. 

Doomsdorf reentered the room then, gazing at 
them in amused contempt, and Ned instinctively 
straightened. 


180 


The Isle of Retribution 


“ I trust you’re not hatching mutiny? ” the sar¬ 
donic voice came out. 

“Not just now,” Ned answered with some spirit. 
“ There’s not much use to hatch mutiny, things be¬ 
ing as they are.” 

“You don’t say! There’s a rifle on the 
wall-” 

“ Always empty-” 

“ But the pistol I carry is always loaded. Why 
don’t you try to take it away from me? ” Then his 
voice changed, surly and rumbling again. “ But 
enough of that nonsense. You know what would 
happen to you if you tried anything—I’ve told 



There’s got to be another cabin — logs cut, built 
up, roof put on — a place for the three of you to 
bunk. That’s the work to-day. The three of you 
ought to get a big piece of it done to-day-” 

“Miss Hardenworth? Is she well enough? 
Couldn’t she help your wife with the housework 
to-day? ” 

“ It will take all three of you to do the work I’ll 
lay out. Lenore can learn to do her stint with the 
others. And hereafter, when you address me, call 
me ‘ Sir.’ A mere matter of employer’s disci¬ 
pline -” 

Because he knew his master, Ned nodded in 
agreement. “ Yes, sir,” he returned simply. 
“ One thing else. I can’t be expected to do real 
work in this kind of clothes. You’ve laid out furs 
and skins for the girls; I want to get something too 
that will keep me warm and dry.” 








The Isle of Retribution 


181 


“ I’m not responsible for the clothes you brought 
with you. You should have had greater respect for 
the North. Besides, it gives me pleasure, I assure 
you, to see you dressed as you are. It tones up the 
whole party.” 

Stripped of his late conceit that might otherwise 
have concealed it from him, Ned caught every ves¬ 
tige of the man’s irony. “ Do I get the warm 
clothes? ” he demanded bluntly. 

“ When you earn them,” was the answer. “ In 
a few days more you’ll be running out your traps, 
and everything you catch, at first, you can keep. 
You’ve got to prove yourself smarter than the ani¬ 
mals before you get the right to wear their skins.” 


XIX 


The previous day and night had been full of 
revelation for Ned; and as he started forth from 
the cabin with his axe, there occurred a little scene 
that tended even further to illustrate his changing 
viewpoint. Gloating with triumph at the younger 
man’s subjection, Doomsdorf called sardonically 
from the cabin doorway. 

“ I trust I can’t help you in any way? ” he asked. 

Discerning the premeditated insult in his tone, 
Ned whirled to face him. Then for an instant he 
stood shivering with wrath. . 

“ Yes,” he answered. His promise to say “ sir ” 
was forgotten in his rage. “ You can at least treat 
me with the respect deserved by a good workman.” 

The words came naturally to his lips. It was as 
if they reflected a thought that he had considered 
long, instead of the inspiration of the moment. 
The truth was that, four days before, he had never 
known that good work and good workmen were 
entitled to respect. The world’s labor had seemed 
apart from his life; the subject a stupid one not 
worth his thought and interest. In one terrible day 
Ned had found out what the word work meant. 
He had learned what a reality it was. All at once 
he saw in it a possible answer to life itself. 

He stood aghast at the magnitude of his discov¬ 
ery. Why, work was the beginning and the end of 


183 


The Isle of Retribution 

everything. Reaching back to the beginnings of 
creation, extending clear until the last soul in 
heaven had passed on and through the training 
camp of the last hereafter, it was the thing that 
counted most. He had never thought about it in 
particular before. Strangely it had not even oc¬ 
curred to him that the civilization that he wor¬ 
shipped, all the luxury and richness that he loved, 
had been possible only through the toil of human 
hands and brains. 

Suddenly he knew that his father had been right 
and he had been wrong. The life of the humblest 
worker had been worth more than his. It would 
have been better for him to die, that long-ago night 
of the automobile accident, than for Bess to lose 
one of her working hands! He had been contemp¬ 
tuous of work and workers, but had not his own 
assumption of superiority been chiefly based upon 
the achievements of working men who had gone be¬ 
fore him? What could he claim for himself that 
could even put him on the par with the great mass 
of manhood, much less make him their superior? 
He had played when there was work to do, 
shirked his load when the backs of better men were 
bent. 

In his heart Ned had been a little ashamed of 
his father. He had felt it would have been more 
to his credit if the wealth that sustained him should 
have originated several generations farther back, 
instead of by the sole efforts of Godfrey Cornet. 
It had made Ned himself feel almost like one of 
the nouveaux riches . The more the blood of sue- 


184 


The Isle of Retribution 

cess was thinned, it seemed, the bluer it was; and it 
wasn’t easy to confess, especially to certain young 
English bloods, that the name emblazoned in elec¬ 
tric lights across a great house of trade was, but one 
generation removed, his own. He had particularly 
deplored his father’s tendency to mention, in any 
company, his own early struggles, the poverty from 
which he sprung. But how true and genuine was 
the shame he felt now at that false shame! In this 
moment of revelation he saw his father plainly and 
knew him for the sturdy old warrior, the man of 
prowess, most of all for the sterling aristocrat that 
he was. He was a good workman: need anything 
more be said? 

Ever since his college days he had snubbed him, 
patronized him, disregarded his teachings whereby 
he might have come into his own manhood. He had 
never respected good work or good workmen; and 
now it was fitting retribution that he should spend 
his natural life in the most grinding, bitter work. 
Even now he was making amends for his folly at 
the hands of the most cruel, ironical fate that could 
befall him. His axe was in his arms; his savage 
taskmaster faced him from the cabin doorway. 

All these thoughts coursed through Ned’s keenly 
wakened brain in an instant. They seemed as in- 
stantaneous as the flood of wrath that had swept 
through him at Doomsdorf’s irony. And now 
would he suffer some unspeakable punishment for 
insolence to his master? 

But little, amused lines came about Doomsdorf’s 
fierce eyes. “A good workman, eh?” he echoed. 


185 


The Isle of Retribution 

“ Yes, you did work fair enough yesterday. Wait 
just a minute.” 

He turned into his door, in a moment reappear¬ 
ing with a saw and several iron wedges from among 
his supplies of tools. He put them in Ned’s hands, 
and the latter received them with a delight never 
experienced at any favor of fortune in the past. 
The great penalty of such a life as he had lived, 
wherein almost every material thing came into his 
hands at his wish, is that it costs the power to feel 
delight, the simple joy and gratitude of children; 
but evidently Ned was learning how again. Just 
a saw of steel and wedges of iron for splitting! 
Workmen’s tools that he once regarded with con¬ 
tempt. But oh, they would save him many a weary 
hour of labor. The saw could cut through the 
fallen logs in half the time he could hack them with 
his axe; they could be split in half the number of 
strokes with the aid of the wedges. 

He went to his toil; and he was a little amazed 
at how quickly he felled the first of the tall spruce. 
Seemingly his yesterday’s toil had bestowed upon 
him certain valuable knowledge. His strokes 
seemed to be more true: they even had a greater 
degree of power for the same amount of effort. 
There were certain angles by which he could get the 
best results: he would learn them, too — sooner or 
later. 

As he worked, the stiffness and pain that yester¬ 
day’s toil had left in his muscles seemed to pass 
away. The axe swung easily in his arms. When 
the first tree was chopped down, he set Lenore and 


186 The Isle of Retribution 

Bess at trimming off the branches and sawing 
twelve-foot logs for the hut. 

It came about that he chopped down several trees 
before the two girls had finished cutting and trim¬ 
ming the first. Seemingly Lenore had not yet re¬ 
covered from the trying experience of two nights 
before, for she wholly failed to do any part of the 
work. What was done at this end of the labor Bess 
did alone. The unmistakable inference was that 
Ned would have to double his own speed in order 
to avoid the lash at night. 

Yet he felt no resentment. Lenore was even 
more inured to luxury and ease than he himself: 
evidently the grinding physical labor was infinitely 
beyond her. Bess, however, still toiled bravely with 
axe and saw. 

The day turned out to be not greatly different 
from the one preceding. Again Ned worked to 
absolute exhaustion: the only apparent change 
seemed to be that he accomplished a greater amount 
of work before he finallv fell insensible in the snow. 
This was the twilight hour, and prone in the snow 
he lay like a warrior among his fallen. About him 
was a ring of trees chopped down and, with Bess’s 
aid, trimmed of their limbs, notched and sawed into 
lengths for the cabin. They had only to be lifted, 
one upon another, to form the cabin walls. 

Bess had collapsed too as the twilight hour drew 
on; and Lenore alone was able to walk unaided to 
the shack. Again Ned lay insensible on the floor 
beside the stove, but to-night, long past the supper 
hour, he was able to remove his own wet clothes and 


187 


The Isle of Retribution 

to devour some of the unsavory left-overs from the 
meal. Again the night fell over Hell Island, 
tremulous and throbbing with all the mighty pas¬ 
sions of the wild, and again dawn came with its 
gray light on the snow. And like some insensible, 
mechanical thing Ned rose to toil again. 

The third day was given to lifting the great logs, 
one upon another, for the walls of the cabin. It 
was, in reality, the hardest work he had yet done, 
as to shift each log into place took every ounce of 
lifting power the man had. The girls could help 
him but little here, for both of them together did 
not seem to be able to handle an end of the great 
logs. He found he had to lift each end in turn. 

Yet he was able to drag to the cabin to-night, 
and torpid with fatigue, take his place at the crude 
supper table. He was hardly conscious that he was 
eating — lifting the food to his mouth as mechan¬ 
ically as he had lifted the great logs into place to¬ 
ward the end of the day — and the faces opposite 
him were as those seen in a dream, never in the full 
light, vague and dim like ghosts. Sometimes he 
tried to smile at one of them — as if by a long-re¬ 
membered instinct — and sometimes one of the as¬ 
sembled group — a different face than that to 
which he addressed his smiles — seemed to be smil¬ 
ing at him, deep blue eyes curiously lustrous as if 
with tears. Then there was a brown, inscrutable 
face that just now and then appeared out of the 
shadow, and a stealing, slipping, silent some one 
that belonged to it, — some one that now and then 
brought food and put it on the table. 






188 The Isle of Retribution 

But none of these faces went home to him like 
the great, hairy visage of the demon that sat op¬ 
posite. Ned eyed him covertly throughout the 
meal, wondering every time he moved in his chair 
if he were getting up to procure his whip, flinch¬ 
ing every time the great arm moved swiftly across 
the table. He didn’t remember getting up from 
his chair, stripping off part of his wet clothes and 
falling among the blankets that Doomsdorf had left 
for his use on the floor. Almost at once it was 
dawn again. 

A new, more vivid consciousness was upon him 
when he wakened. The stabbing ache in his legs 
and arms was mostly worn off now; but there was 
a sharp pain in the small of his back that at first 
seemed absolutelv unendurable. But it waned, too, 
as he went to the work of finishing the cabin, laying 
the roof and hanging the crude door. To-day he 
was conscious of greater physical power, of more 
prolonged effort without fatigue. The whole island 
world was more vivid and clear than ever before. 

It was with a certain vague quality of pleasure 
that he regarded this cabin he had built with his 
own hands, finished now, except for the chinking 
of the logs. It was the first creative work he had 
ever done, and he looked at it and saw that it was 
good. 

He could forget, now, the dreadful, heart-break¬ 
ing toil he had put into it. It had almost killed 
him, but he was no worse for it now. Indeed his 
arms were somewhat stronger, he was even better 
equipped to meet the next, greater task that 


189 


The Isle of Retribution 

Doomsdorf appointed him. It was curious that, 
slave of a cruel taskmaster that he was, he experi¬ 
enced a dim echo of something that was akin to a 
new self-respect. 

These logs, laid one upon another, were visible 
proof that so far he had stood the gaff! He had 
done killing work, yet he still lived to do more. The 
fear that his spirit would fly from his exhausted 
frame at the end of one of these bitter days could 
soon be discarded; seemingly he could toil from 
dawn to dark, eat his fill, and in a night’s sleep 
build himself up for another day of toil. More and 
more of Lenore’s work could be laid on his ever- 
strengthening shoulders. 

The cabin itself was roomy and snug: here he 
could find seclusion from Doomsdorf and his im¬ 
perturbable squaw. It was blessing enough just to 
be out of his sight in the long winter nights after 
supper, no more to watch every movement of his 
arm! Besides, he was down to realities, and it was 
a mighty satisfaction to know that here was a last¬ 
ing shelter from the storm and the cold. The 
Arctic winter was falling swiftly, and here was his 
defense. 

Doomsdorf gave him a rusted, discarded stove; 
and it was almost joy to see it standing in its place! 
With Doomsdorf’s permission, he devoted a full 
day to procuring fuel for it. 

Four days more the three of them worked at the 
task of laying in fuel, — Ned doing the lion’s share 
of the work, of course; Bess toiling to the limit of 
her fine, young strength; Lenore making the merest 


190 


The Isle of Retribution 


pretense. The result of the latter’s idleness was, 
of course, that her two companions had to divide 
her share of work between them. Every day 
Doomsdorf allotted them certain duties, — so many 
trees to cut up into stove wood, or some other, no 
less arduous duty; and he seemed to have an un¬ 
canny ability to drive them just short of actual, 
complete exhaustion. The fact that Lenore 
shirked her share meant that at the close of every 
day, in order to complete the allotment provided, 
Ned and Bess had to drive themselves beyond that 
point, practically to the border of utter collapse. 
The short rests that they might otherwise have al¬ 
lowed themselves, those blessed moments of relaxa¬ 
tion wherein the run-down batteries of their energy 
were recharged, they dared not take. The result 
was hour upon hour of such sustained toil that it 
seemed impossible that human frames could bear 
the strain. 

But the seemingly impossible came to pass, and 
every day found them stronger for their tasks. 
Evidently the human body has incredible powers 
of adaptation to new environment. While, at the 
end of the day’s toil, it seemed beyond all possibility 
that they could ever stagger back to the cabins, 
when the only wish they had left was to lie still in 
the snow and let the bitter cold take its toll, yet a 
few minutes’ relaxation in the warmth of the stove 
always heartened them and gave them strength to 
take their places at the supper table. As the days 
passed, it was no longer necessary to seek their cots 
the instant they left the table. They took to linger- 


191 


The Isle of Retribution 

ing a little while in the crude chairs about the stove, 
mostly sitting silent in absolute dejection, but 
sometimes exchanging a few, primitive thoughts. 
Very little mattered to them now but food and 
shelter and sleep. They were down to the absolute 
essentials. As the days passed, however, they be¬ 
gan to take time for primitive, personal toilets. 
They took to washing their faces and hands: Bess 
and Lenore even combed out the snarls in their hair 
with Doomsdorf’s broken comb. Then the two girls 
dressed their tresses into two heavy braids, to be 
worn Indian fashion in front of the shoulders, the 
method that required the least degree of care. 

They consumed great quantities of food, — par¬ 
ticularly Bess and Ned. What would have been a 
full day’s rations in their own home, enough con¬ 
centrated nutriment to put them in bed with in¬ 
digestion, did not suffice for a single meal. Never 
before had Ned really known the love of food — 
red meat, the fair, good bread, rice grains white 
and fluffed— but it came upon him quickly enough 
now. Before, his choice had run toward women’s 
foods, exotic sauces, salads and ices and relishes, 
foods that tickled the palate but gave no joy to the 
inner man; but now he wanted inner fuel, plenty 
of it and unadorned. He cared little how it was 
cooked, whether or not it had seasoning. The sweet 
taste of meat was loved by him now, — great, thick, 
half-done steaks of nutritious caribou. He didn’t 
miss butter on his bfead. He would eat till he 
could hold no more, hardly chewing his food; and 
as he lay asleep, the inner agents of his body would 




192 


The Isle of Retribution 


draw from it the stuff of life with which was built 
up his shattered tissue. 

The physical change was manifest in a few days. 
His spare flesh went away as if in a single night, 
and then hard muscle began to take its place. His 
flesh looked firmer; sagging fat was gone from his 
face; his skin — pasty white before — was brown¬ 
ish-red from the scourge of the wind. Now the 
manly hair began to mat about his lips and jowls. 
A hardening manifested itself in his speech. The 
few primitive sentences, spoken in the tired-out 
sessions about the stove, became him more than 
hours of his former chatter. He no longer gabbled 
lightly like a girl, his speech full of quirks and af¬ 
fectations: he spoke in blunt, short sentences, with 
blunt, short words, and his meaning was immedi¬ 
ately plain. 

He was standing the gaff! Every day found 
him with greater physical mastery. Yet it was not 
altogether innate strength, or simple chemical 
energy derived from the enormous quantities of 
food he consumed that kept him on his feet. More 
than once, as the bitter night came down to find 
him toiling, a strange, wan figure in the snow, he 
was all but ready to give up. The physical side of 
him was conquered; the primitive desire for life no 
longer manifested itself in his spirit. Just to fall 
in the snow, to let his tired legs wilt under him, 
perhaps to creep a little way back into the thicket 
where Doomsdorf’s lantern would fail to reveal 
him: then he would be free of this dreadful train¬ 
ing camp for good! The sleep that would come 


The Isle of Retribution 


193 


upon him then would not be cursed with the knowl¬ 
edge of a coming dawn, as gray and hopeless as the 
twilight just departed! He would be safe then from 
Doomsdorf s lash! The Arctic wind would convey 
his wretched spirit far beyond the madman’s power 
to follow; his aching, bleeding hands would heal in 
some Gentleness far away. The fear of which 
psychologists speak, that of the leap into darkness 
that is glibly said to be the last conscious instinct, 
was absolutely absent. Death was a word to con¬ 
jure with no more. It was no harder for him to 
think of than the fall of a tree beneath his axe. 
The terror that surrounded it was ever only a 
specter: and in the clear vision that came to him 
in those terrible twilights, only realities were worth 
the effort of thought. The physical torture of stag¬ 
gering through the snow back to the cabin was so 
infinitely worse than any conception that he could 
retain of death; the life that stretched before him 
was so absolutely bereft of hope that the elemental 
dread of what lay beyond would not have restrained 
him an instant. The thing went deeper than that. 
The reason why he did not yield to the almost ir¬ 
resistible desire to lie down and let the North take 
its toll had its fount in the secret places of the man’s 
soul. He was beyond the reach of fear for himself, 
but his love for Lenore mastered him yet. 

He must not leave Lenore. He had given his 
love to her, and this love was a thousand times more 
compelling than any fear could possibly be. He 
must stand up, he must go on through, — for the 
sake of this dream that counted more than life. 


194 


The Isle of Retribution 


Was not her happiness in his whole charge? Did 
he not constitute her one defense against Dooms- 
dorf’s persecutions? He must live on, carrying as 
many of her burdens as he could. 

Bess too knew an urge beyond herself; but she 
would not have found it so easy to get it into con¬ 
crete thought. Perhaps women care less about 
cause and more about effect, willing to follow im¬ 
pulse and scarcely feeling the need of justifying 
every action with a laborious thought process. In 
her own heart Bess knew she must not falter, she 
must not give up. Whence that knowledge came 
she had no idea, and she didn’t care. There was 
need of her too on this wretched, windy island. 
She had her place here; certain obligations had 
been imposed upon her. She didn’t try to puzzle 
out what these obligations were. Perhaps she was 
afraid of the heart’s secret that might be revealed 
to her. Her instinct was simply to stay and play 
her part. 

The only one of the three to whom the fear of 
death was still a reality was Lenore, simply be¬ 
cause the full horror of the island had not yet gone 
home to her. She thought she knew the worst; in 
reality, she had no inkling of it. So far Ned had 
succeeded in sheltering her from it. 

How long he could continue to do so, in any per¬ 
ceptible degree, he did not know. In the first place 
he had the girl herself to contend with: now that 
she was recovering, Lenore would likely enough in¬ 
sist on doing her own share of the work. Besides, 
the problem was greatly complicated, now that the 


195 


The Isle of Retribution 

winter’s supply of fuel was laid by, and the real 
season’s activities about to begin. Could he spare 
her such bitter, terrible hours that he and Bess must 
endure, following the trap lines over the wild? 
Must she be cursed and lashed and tortured by the 
cold, know the torment of worn-out muscles, only 
to be rewarded by the knout for failing to bring in 
a sufficient catch of furs? Doomsdorf would be 
more exacting, rather than more lenient, in these 
months to come. He had been willing enough for 
Ned to do Lenore’s share in the work of laying in 
winter fuel; but the size of the fur catch was a mat¬ 
ter of greater moment to him. It was unthinkable 
that Ned could handle to the best advantage both 
Lenore’s trap line and his own. Work as hard as 
he might, long into the night hours, one man 
couldn’t possibly return two men’s catch. For Le¬ 
nore’s sake Ned regarded the beginning of the trap¬ 
ping season with dread, although for himself he had 
cause to anticipate it. 

He hadn’t forgotten that the first furs taken 
would be his, and he needed them sorely enough. 
Indeed, the matter was beginning to be of para¬ 
mount importance to his health and life. The 
clothes he had worn from the Charon, flimsy as the 
life of which they had been a part, were rapidly 
wearing out. They didn’t turn the rain, and they 
were not nearly warm enough for the bitter weather 
to come. Ned did not forget that the month was 
only October; that according to Doomsdorf, real 
winter would not break over them for a few weeks, 
at least. The snow flurries, the frost, the bitter 


196 


The Isle of Retribution 


nights were just the merest hint of what was to 
come, he said: the wail of the biting wind at night 
just the far-off trumpet call of an advancing 
enemy. A man could go thinly garbed on such 
days as this and, except for an aching chill through¬ 
out his frame, suffer no disagreeable consequences; 
but such wouldn’t hold true in the forty-below-zero 
weather that impended. . Only fur and the thickest 
woolens could avail in the months to come. 

Besides, the trapper’s life offered more of in¬ 
terest than that of the woodchopper. It would 
carry him through those gray valleys and over the 
rugged hills that now, when he had time to look 
about him, seemed to invite his exploration. Best 
of all, the work would largely carry him away from 
Doomsdorf’s presence. If only he could spare Le- 
nore, not only by permission of Doomsdorf but by 
the consent of the girl herself. 

The matter came up that night while Dooms¬ 
dorf was sorting out some of his smaller traps. 
“We’ll light out to-morrow,” he said. “The 
sooner we get these things set, the better. The 
water furs seem to be absolutely prime already — 
I’m sure the land furs must be too. I wonder if 
you three have any idea what you’re going to do.” 

Ned saw an opportunity to speak for Lenore, but 
Doomsdorf’s speech ran on before he could take it. 
“ I don’t suppose you do,” he said. “ Of course, 
I’m going to show you — nevertheless it would help 
some if any of you knew an otter from a lynx. 
You may not know it, but this island contains a 
good many square miles — to trap it systematically 


197 


The Isle of Retribution 

requires many lines and hundreds of traps. I’ve 
already laid out three lines — sometimes I’ve 
trapped one, and sometimes another. Two of ’em 
are four-day lines, and one a five-day line — that 
is, they take four and five days respectively to get 
around. On each one I’ve built series of huts, or 
shacks, all of them with a stove and supplies of 
food, and you put up in them for the night. They 
are a day’s march apart, giving you time to pick 
up your skins, reset, and so on, as you go. Believe 
me, you won’t have any time to loaf. After you 
get into the cabins at night, eat your supper and 
get some of the frost out of your blood, you’ll enjoy 
thawing out and skinning the animals you’ve caught 
in your trap. If it’s a big animal, dead and frozen 
and too big to carry, you’ll have to make a fire out 
in the snow and thaw him out there. So you see 
you’ll have varied experience. 

“ You’ll he away from me and this cabin for days 
at a time, but if you’re figuring on any advantage 
from that, just put it out of your mind, the sooner 
the better. Maybe you think you can sneak enough 
time to make a boat, smuggle it down to the water, 
and cast off. Let me assure you you’ll have no 
time to sneak. Besides, this patch of timber right 
here is nearer to the shore than any other patch on 
the island — you’d simply have no chance to get 
away with it. If you think you could cross the ice 
to Tzar Island, after winter breaks, you’re barking 
up the wrong tree too. In my daily hunts I’ll man¬ 
age to get up on one of these ridges, and I can keep 
a pretty fair watch of you over these treeless hills. 




198 


The Isle of Retribution 

You’d never get more than a few hours’ start; and 
they wouldn’t help you at all on the ice fields! I 
trust there’s no need to mention penalties. You 
already know about that. 

“ And maybe you are thinking it will be easy 
enough to slack — not trying to catch much, so you 
won’t have many skins to flesh and stretch— maybe 
hiding what you do catch. I’ll just say this. I 
have a pretty good idea how this country runs — 
just how many skins each line yields with fair trap¬ 
ping. I’m going to increase that estimate by 
twenty per cent. — and that’s to be your minimum. 
I won’t say what that amount is now. But if at 
the end of the season you’re short — by one skin 
— look out! It means that you’ll have to be about 
twenty per cent, smarter and more industrious than 
the average trapper.” 

“But man-” Ned protested. “We’re not 

experienced-” 

“ You’ll learn quick enough. Aren’t you the 
dominant race? And I warn you again—you’d 
better drop bitter tears every time you find where 
a wolverine has been along and eaten an ermine out 
of a trap! ” 

The man was not jesting. They knew him well 
enough by now; the piercing glitter of his keen, 
gray eyes, the odd fixation about his pupils that was 
always manifest when he was most in earnest, was 
plainly in evidence now. Thus it was with the most 
profound amazement that Lenore’s companions 
suddenly saw her beautiful mouth curling in a 
smile. 







199 


The Isle of Retribution 

For themselves they were lost in despair. All 
too plainly Doomsdorf had merely hinted at the 
cruel rigors of the trapper’s trail. Yet Lenore was 
smiling. 

Then Ned saw, with a queer little tug of his 
heart, that the smile was not meant for him. It 
was not a gracious signal of her love, meant to en¬ 
courage him in his despair. A woman herself, and 
understanding women, Bess never dreamed for an 
instant that it was; she knew only too well the 
thought and the aim behind that sudden, dazzling 
sunshine in Lenore’s face. Yet her only reaction, 
beyond amazement, was a swift surge of tenderness 
and pity for Ned. 

Lenore was smiling at Doomsdorf. She was 
looking straight into his gray eyes. Her cheeks 
were flushed a lovely pink; her eyes were smiling 
too; she presented an image of ineffable beauty. 
That was what hurt worse, — the fact that her 
beauty had never seemed more genuine than now. 
It was the mask of falsehood, yet her smile was as 
radiant as any he remembered of their most holy 
moments together. He had not dreamed that any 
emotion except her love for him could call such a 
light into her face. It had been, to him, the lasting 
proof that she was his, the very symbol of the ideal 
of integrity and genuineness that he made of her; 
yet now he saw her use it as a wile to win some 
favor from this beast in human form. The very 
sacredness of their relations was somehow ques¬ 
tioned. The tower of his faith seemed to be totter¬ 
ing. 



200 


The Isle of Retribution 

Yet he forced away the dismay that seemed to 
cloud him, then began to watch with keenest inter¬ 
est. Not even this man of iron could wholly resist 
her smile. In a single instant she had captured 
his mood: he was not so fixed in his intent. 

“ I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much good to you, as 
a trapper,” she began quietly, her voice of cloying 
sweetness. “ I’m afraid I’d only get in the way 
and scare the little — ermines, you call them? — 
out of the country. Mr. Doomsdorf, do you know 
how well I can keep house? ” 

Doomsdorf looked at her, grinning in contempt, 
yet not wholly unresponsive to the call she was 
making to him. “ Can’t say as I do-” 

“ You don’t know how I can cook, either, — 
make salads, and desserts, and things like that. 
You’d better let me stay here and help your wife 
with the housework. I’d really be of some value, 
then.” 

For an instant the wind seemed to pause on the 
roof; and all of them sat in startled silence. The 
only movement was that of Sindy, imperturbable 
as ever, rocking back and forth in her chair; and 
the sound she made had a slow and regular cadence, 
as of a great clock. Ned sat staring at his hands; 
Bess’s gaze rested first on him, then on the two 
principals of the little drama who still sat smiling 
as if in understanding. Ned needn’t have worried 
about Lenore insisting on doing her share of the 
rigorous, outdoor work. The difficulty that he had 
anticipated in persuading her to let him lighten her 
burdens had not been serious, after all. 



201 


The Isle of Retribution 

And really there was little cause for his own de¬ 
pression. Lenore meant exactly what she said. 
After all, this was his own plan, — that she should 
remain and help Sindy with the housework and the 
caring for such skins as Doomsdorf himself took, 
thus avoiding the heart-breaking hardship of the 
trap lines. Nor could he hold against her the lie 
in her smile. It was her whole right to use it in her 
own behalf: to use any wile she could to gain her 
ends. He was a fool to suppose that there was a 
moral issue involved! The old moral teaching 
against compromise with the devil didn’t hold here. 
Perhaps Bess and himself could get farther, make 
their toil easier, if they also fawned on Doomsdorf. 
The fact that he would sooner wear his hands to 
the bone or die beneath the lash did not imply moral 
superiority. It simply showed that he was of dif¬ 
ferent make-up. The same with Bess; she was 
simply of a different breed. 

And the wile was not without results. The usual 
scoffing refusal did not come at once to the bearded 
lips. Perhaps her master was flattered that Lenore 
was so tamed, perhaps he wished to reward her 
attitude of friendliness so that Bess might take ex¬ 
ample. Lenore had never moved him with the same 
fire as Bess: perhaps by showing leniency now, the 
latter could be brought to this same pass! Besides, 
Lenore was the weakest of the three and he had 
thus less desire to break what little spirit she had, 
rather preferring, by complying with her request, 
to heap fresh burdens of toil and hardship on these 
two proud-spirited ones before him. 


202 


The Isle of Retribution 


“ You want to stay here with Sindy and me, 
eh?” he commented at last. “ Well, Sindy might 
like some help. I’m willing — but I’ll leave it up 
to your two friends. They’ll have to work all the 
harder to make up for it — especially Bess. I was 
going to have you two girls work together.” 

He watched Ned’s face with keenest interest. 
The younger man flushed in his earnestness, his 
adoring gaze on Lenore. 

“ I’m only too glad to make it easier for you,” 
he said, his crooked, boyish smile dim at his lips. 
“ That’s the one thing that matters — to help you 
all I can. In this case, though — Bess is the one 
to say.” 

Lenore perceptibly stiffened as Ned’s gaze 
turned to Bess. It didn’t flatter her that her lover 
should even take Bess into his consideration. She 
had grown accustomed to receiving his every duty. 

But it came about that Lenore and her little 
jealousies did not even find a place in Bess’s 
thought. She returned Ned’s gaze, her eyes lus¬ 
trous as if with tears, and she understood wholly 
the prayer that was in his heart. 

“ Of course she may stay here,” she said. 
“ We’ll make out somehow.” 




XX 


Doomsdorf’s trap lines lay in great circles, coin¬ 
ciding at various points in order to reduce the num¬ 
ber of cabins needed to work them, and ultimately 
swinging back to the home cabin in the thicket be¬ 
side the sea. They were very simple to follow, he 
explained — Bess’s line running up the river to the 
mouth of a great tributary that flowed from the 
south, the camp being known as the Eagle Creek 
cabin; thence up the tributary to its forks, known 
as the Forks cabin, up the left-hand forks to its 
mother springs, the Spring cabin, and then straight 
down the ridge to the home cabin, four days’ jour¬ 
ney in all. She couldn’t miss any of the three huts, 
Doomsdorf explained, as all of them were located 
in the open barrens, on the banks of the creeks she 
was told to follow. Doomsdorf drew for her guid¬ 
ance a simple map that would remove all danger 
of going astray. 

Ned’s route was slightly more complicated, yet 
nothing that the veriest greenhorn could not follow. 
It took him first to what Doomsdorf called his 
Twelve-Mile cabin at the very head of the little 
stream on which the home cabin was built, thence 
following a well-blazed trail along an extensive 
though narrow strip of timber, a favorable country 
for marten, to the top of the ridge, around the 
glacier, and down to the hut that Bess occupied 



204 


The Isle of Retribution 

the third night out, known as the Forks cabin; 
thence up the right-hand fork to its mother spring, 
the Thirty-Mile cabin; over the ridge and down to 
the sea, the Sea cabin; and thence, trapping salt¬ 
water mink and otter, to the home cabin, five days’ 
journey in all. “ If you use your head, you can’t 
get off,” Doomsdorf explained. “ If you don’t, no 
one will ever take the trouble to look you up.” 

As if smiling upon their venture, nature gave 
them a clear dawn in which to start forth. The 
squaw and Bess started up from the river mouth 
together, the former in the role of teacher; Ned 
and Doomsdorf followed up the little, silvery creek 
that rippled past the home cabin. And for the first 
time since his landing on Hell Island Ned had a 
chance really to look about him. 

It was the first time he had been out of sight of 
the cabin and thus away from the intangible change 
that the mere presence of man works on the wild. 
All at once, as the last vestige of the white roof 
was concealed behind the snow-laden branches of 
the spruce, he found himself in the very heart of 
the wilderness. It was as if he had passed from one 
world to another. 

Even the air was different. It stirred and moved 
and throbbed in a way he couldn’t name, as if 
mighty, unnamable passions seemed about to be 
wakened. He caught a sense of a resistless power 
that could crush him to earth at a whim, of vast 
forces moving by fixed, invisible law; he felt that 
secret, wondering awe which to the woodsman 
means the nearing presence of the Red Gods. Only 


205 


The Isle of Retribution 

the mighty powers of nature were in dominion here: 
the lashing snows of winter, the bitter cold, the wind 
that wept by unheard by human ears. Ned was 
closer to the heart of nature, and thus to the heart 
of life, than he had ever been before. 

He had no words to express the mood that came 
upon him. The wind that crept through the 
stunted spruce trees expressed it better than he; 
it was in the song that the wolf pack rings to sing 
on winter nights; in the weird complaint that the 
wild geese called down from the clouds. What lit¬ 
tle sound there was, murmuring branches and fallen 
aspen leaves, fresh on the snow, rustling faintly to¬ 
gether and serving only to accentuate the depth of 
the silence, had this same, eerie motif, — nothing 
that could be put in words, nothing that ever came 
vividly into his consciousness, but which laid bare 
the very soul and spirit of life. Cold and hunger, 
an ancient persecution whose reason no man knew, 
a never-to-be-forgotten fear of a just but ruthless 
God! 

This was the land untamed. There was not, at 
first, a blaze on a tree, the least sign that human 
beings had ever passed that way before. It was the 
land-that-used-to-be, unchanged seemingly since 
the dim beginnings of the world. Blessed by the 
climbing sun of spring, warm and gentle in the sum¬ 
mer, moaning its old complaint when the fall winds 
swept through the branches, lashed by the storms 
of winter, — thus it had lain a thousand-thousand 
years. And now, a little way up the stream, there 
was more tangible sign that this was the kingdom 


206 The Isle of Retribution 

of the wild. Instead of an unpeopled desert, it was 
shown to be teeming with life. They began to see 
the trails of the forest creatures in the snow. 

Sometimes they paused before the delicate im¬ 
print of a fox, like a snow etching made by a mas¬ 
ter hand; sometimes the double track of marten and 
his lesser cousin, the ermine; once the great cowlike 
mark of a caribou, seeking the pale-green reindeer 
moss that hung like tresses from the trees. Seem¬ 
ingly every kind of northern animal of which Ned 
had ever heard had immediately preceded them 
through the glade. 

“ Where there’s timber, there’s marten,” Dooms- 
dorf explained. “ Marten, I suppose you know, 
are the most valuable furs we take, outside of silver 
and blue fox — and one of the easiest taken. The 
marten’s such a ruthless hunter that he doesn’t look 
what he’s running into. You won’t find them far 
on the open barrens, but they are in hundreds in the 
long, narrow timber belt between Twelve-Mile 
cabin, to-night’s stop, and Forks cabin that you’ll 
hit to-morrow night. And we’ll make our first set 
right here.” 

He took one of the traps from Ned’s shoulder 
and showed him how to make the set. The bait was 
placed a few feet above the trap, in this case, on the 
trunk of the tree, so that to reach it the marten 
would almost certainly spring the trap. 

“ Put ’em fairly thick through here,” Doomsdorf 
advised. “ Lay more emphasis on fox and lynx in 
the open barrens.” He stepped back from the set. 
“ Do you think you can find this place again? ” 



207 


The Isle of Retribution 

Ned looked it over with minute care, marking it 
in relation to certain dead trees that lay across the 
creek. “ I think I can.” 

“ That’s the very essential of trapping, naturally. 
It will come to be second nature after a while — 
without marking it by trees or anything. You’ll 
have better than a hundred traps; and it isn’t as 
easy as it looks. Remember, I won’t be with you 
the next time you pass this way.” 

They tramped on, and Doomsdorf pointed out 
where a wolverine had come down the glade and 
crossed the creek. “ You’ll curse at the very name 
of wolverine before the season’s done,” Doomsdorf 
told him, as Ned paused to study the imprint. 
“ He’s the demon of the snow so far as the trapper 
is concerned. Nevertheless, you’ll want to take a 
skin for your own use. It’s the one fur for the 
hood of a parka — you can wear it over your mouth 
in fifty below and it doesn’t get covered with ice 
from your breath. But you’ll have to be a smarter 
man than I think you are to catch him.” 

A few minutes later the timber became to be 
more noticeably stunted, the trees farther and 
farther apart, and soon they were in the open. 
These were the barren lands, deep moss or rich 
marsh grass already heavy with snow; and the only 
trees remaining were a few willow, quivering aspen, 
and birch along the bank of the creek. From time 
to time the two men stopped to place their traps, 
Doomsdorf explaining the various “ sets ”, how to 
conceal the cold steel of which most all creatures 
have such an instinctive fear, and how to eliminate 


208 


The Isle of Retribution 

the human smell that might otherwise keep the 
more cunning of the fur-bearers from the bait. 
Once they paused before a great, cruel instrument 
of iron, seemingly much too large to be a trap, that 
had been left at the set from the previous trapping 
season. 

“ Lift it,” Doomsdorf advised. Ned bent, find¬ 
ing the iron itself heavy in his arms. 

“No creature’s going to walk away with that on 
his leg, is he? ” 

“No? That’s all vou know about it. I’ll admit 

«/ 

that you wouldn’t care to walk with it very far. 
You would see why I didn’t take it into shelter at 
the close of the season — although of course it’s 
easy enough to haul on a sled. You notice it’s at¬ 
tached to a chain, and that chain to a toggle.” 

“ Toggle ” was a word that Ned had never heard 
before, but which plainly represented a great log, 
or drag, to which the trap chain was attached. Ned 
gazed, and another foolish question came to his lips. 
“ You use that because there isn’t a tree handy? ” 
he asked. 

“ If there was a tree handy, I’d use it just the 
same,” Doomsdorf explained. “ There’s no hold¬ 
ing the animal I catch in that trap by chaining him 
fast. No matter how big the tree or how stout the 
chain, he’d break loose — or else he’d pull out his 
foot. You’ve got to give him play. That’s why 
we use a toggle.” 

“You don’t mean he drags that great thing-” 

“ No, only about halfway across the island be¬ 
fore I can possibly overtake him and shoot him. 



209 


The Isle of Retribution 

bellowing like a devil every step of the way. More¬ 
over, the toggle has to be chained near the end, 
rather than in the middle — otherwise he’ll catch 
the ends back of a couple of tree trunks and break 
loose. Now set the trap.” 

It took nearly all of Ned’s strength to push down 
the powerful springs and set the great jaws. The 
fact that he didn’t know just how to go about it 
impeded him too. And when he stood erect again, 
he found Doomsdorf watching him with keenest 
interest. 

“ I didn’t think you were man enough to do it,” 
he commented. “ You’ll say that’s quite a trap, 
won’t you? ” 

“ It’s quite a trap,” Ned agreed shortly. “ What 
kind of an elephant do you take in it? ” 

“No kind of an elephant, but one of the grandest 
mammals that ever lived, at that. I don’t trap 
them much, because I hardly get enough for their 
skins to pay for handling them — you can guess 
they’re immensely bulky. There’s a fair price for 
their skulls, too, but the skull alone is a fair load for 
a weak back. Last year I needed a few hides for 
the cabin. Did you ever hear of the Kodiac bear? ” 

“ Good Lord! One bear can’t move all that.” 

Doomsdorf stood erect, and his eyes gleamed. 
Evidently the great, savage monarch of the islands 
of which he spoke was some way close to his own 
savage heart. “ He can move your heart into your 
throat just to look at him! ” he said. “ One of the 
grandest mammals that ever lived — the great, 
brown bear of the islands. Of course, you ought 


210 


The Isle of Retribution 

to know he’s by all odds the biggest bear on earth, 
he and the polar bear just north of here — and the 
biggest carnivorous animal on earth, for that mat¬ 
ter. Your lions, your tigers wouldn’t last a minute 
under those great hooks of his. He’d tear your 
whole chest out in one swipe. This seems to be 
about the northern limit of his range — the big 
brownies go all the way from Admiralty Islands, 
in the south, clear up to here, with very little varia¬ 
tion as to size and color. There are not many on 
the Skopins—but going around with just an axe 
and a hunting knife for weapons, you’ll be glad 
there aren’t any more. At this point their range 
begins to coincide, to some slight degree, with the 
polar bear — but of course just a stray gets down 
below the Arctic circle. You’ve got to have a 
whole caribou carcass to interest the old devil in the 
way of bait. And now I’ll show you how to outfox 
him.” 

He cut a slender whip, about half an inch in di¬ 
ameter, from a near-by willow, and thrusting both 
ends into the ground in front of the trap, made an 
arch. “ When the old boy comes along, he’ll lift 
his front foot right over that arch, to avoid stepping 
on anything that looks so unstable, and then 
straight down into the trap,” Doomsdorf explained. 
“If it was heavy wood, he’d rest his foot on it and 
miss the trap.” 

A few minutes later they came to what seemed to 
Ned a new and interesting geological formation. 
It seemed to be a noisy waterfall of three or four 
feet, behind which the creek was dammed to the 



211 


The Isle of Retribution 

proportions of a small, narrow lake. Yet the dam 
itself didn’t appear to be a natural formation of 
rock. It looked more like driftwood, but it was 
inconceivable that mere drift could be piled in this 
ordered way. 

Keenly interested, he bent to examine it. 
Farther up the creek some heavy body struck the 
water with a mighty splash. It was too swift, how¬ 
ever, for him to see what it was. There were no 
power plants or mill wheels here, and thus it was 
difficult to believe that human hands had gone to 
the great labor of building such a dam. Only one 
explanation remained. 

“ It must be a beaver dam,” he said. 

“ You’re right for once,” Doomsdorf agreed. 
“ Did you ever see better engineering? Even the 
dam is built in an arch — the strongest formation 
known to man — to withstand the waters. Some¬ 
time I’ll tell you how they do it — there isn’t as 
much premeditated cunning in it as you think. Do 
you know what a beaver looks like? ” 

“ Got big teeth-” 

“ Correct. It has to have ’em to cut all this 
wood. Likely enoug'h the little devils go con¬ 
siderable distances up and down this creek to 
get their materials. Sometimes they’ll dig great 
canals for floating the sticks they use in their 
dams. 

“A big beaver weighs about fifty pounds — and 
he’s about the handiest boy to trap there is. You’ll 
wonder what the purpose of these dams is. As far 
as I can make out, simply to keep the water at one 





212 The Isle of Retribution 

level. You know these little streams rise and fall 
like the tides. They’ve learned, in a few hundred 
thousand years of their development, that it doesn’t 
pay to build a nice house and then have the creek 
come up and wash it away and drown them out. 
When they put down their winter food, they want 
to be sure it’s going to be there when they want it 
— neither washed away nor high and dry out of 
water. The solution was —to build a dam. Now 
I’ll show you how to catch a beaver.” 

It seemed to Ned that the logical place to lay 
the trap was on the beaver house itself — a great 
pile of sticks and mud. But Doomsdorf explained 
that a trap set on the house itself so alarmed the 
animals that the entire colony was likely to desert 
the dam. Instead, the trap was set just below the 
surface of the water at a landing, — a place where 
the beaver went in and out of the water in the 
course of their daily work. 

No bait was used this time. The trap was cov¬ 
ered with fine mud with the idea that the beaver 
would blunder into it either on leaving or entering 
the water. A heavy sack of little stones from the 
creek bed was attached to the chain, and a long 
wire, leading from this, was fastened securely to a 
tree on the creek bank. The arrangement was 
really a merciful one to the beaver. The instant 
the trap was sprung, the animal’s instinct was to 
dive into deep water. Of course he dragged the 
heavy sack with him and was unable to rise again. 
The beaver, contrary to expectations, can not live 
in water indefinitely. An air-breathing mammal, 





213 


The Isle of Retribution 

he drowns almost as quickly as a human being 
would under the same circumstances. 

They placed a second trap on the dam itself, then 
encircling the meadow, continued on up the stream. 
From time to time they made their sets, as this was 
a favorable region for mink and otter, two of the 
most beautiful and valuable furs. 

Time was passing swiftly for Ned. There was 
even a quality of enjoyment in his reaction to the 
day’s toil. Now as they mounted to the higher 
levels, he was ever more impressed by the very mag¬ 
nitude of the wilderness about—stretching for 
miles in every direction to the shores of the sea. 
The weary wastes got to him and stirred his imagi¬ 
nation as never before. He found, when he paused 
to make the sets, that a certain measure of excite¬ 
ment was upon him. Evidently there was a tang 
and flavor in this snow-swept wilderness through 
which he moved to make the blood flow swiftly in 
the veins. 

Partly it lay in the constant happening of the un¬ 
expected. Every few rods brought its little adven¬ 
ture: perhaps a far-off glimpse of a fox; perhaps a 
flock of hardy waterfowl, tardy in starting south, 
flushing up with a thunderous beat of wings from 
the water; perhaps the swift dive of that dreadful 
little killer, the mink; possibly the track of a vener¬ 
able old bear, already drowsy and contemplating 
hibernation, who had but recently passed that way. 
But perhaps the greater impulse for excitement lay 
in the expectation of what the next turn in the trail 
might bring forth. There were only tracks here, 



214 


The Isle of Retribution 


but the old bear himself might launch forth into a 
deadly charge from the next thicket of birch trees. 
The fox was only a fleet shadow far away, but any 
moment they might run into him face to face, in 
the act of devouring his prey. Ned found that his 
senses had miraculously sharpened, that many little 
nerves of which hitherto he had been unaware had 
wakened into life and were tingling just under the 
skin. Until fatigue came heavily upon him — only 
the first hint of it had yet come to his thighs and 
back — this particular part of his daily duties need 
never oppress him. 

But this dim, faltering hope was forgotten in the 
travail of the next few hours. The load of heavy 
traps on his back; the labor of tramping through 
the snow; most of all the loss of bodily heat through 
his flimsy, snow-wet clothes soon rewarded him for 
daring to seek happiness on this desert of despair. 
As the gray afternoon advanced, his quickened 
spirit fell again: once more his senses were dulled, 
and the crooked, boyish half-smile that had begun 
to manifest itself faded quickly from his lips. 
Doomsdorf still marched in his easy, swinging gait; 
and ever it was a harder fight to keep pace. Yet 
he dared not lag behind. His master’s temper was 
ever uncertain in these long, tired hours of after¬ 
noon. 

Tired out, weakened, aching in every muscle and 
not far from the absolute limit of exhaustion, Ned 
staggered to the cabin door at last. He had put 
out all the traps he had brought from the home 
cabin: thence his course lay along a blazed trail that 


215 


The Isle of Retribution 

skirted the edge of the narrow timber belt, over the 
ridge to the Forks cabin. Doomsdorf entered, then 
in the half-light stood regarding the younger man 
who had followed him in. 

Ned tried to stand erect. He must not yield yet 
to the almost irresistible impulse to throw himself 
down on the floor and rest. He dared not risk 
Doomsdorf’s anger; how did he know what instru¬ 
ments of torture the latter’s satanic ingenuity might 
contrive in this lonely cabin! Nor was his mood to 
be trusted to-night. His gray eyes shone with sup¬ 
pressed excitement; and likely enough he would be 
glad of an excuse for some diversion to pass the 
hours pleasantly. It was very lonely and strange 
out here, in the open, in the full sweep of the wind 
over the barren lands. 

But Ned wasn’t aware of Doomsdorf’s plans. 
The great blond man stretched his arms, yawning, 
buttoned his coat tighter about him, and turned to 
go. “ I’ll see you in about five days,” he remarked 
laconically. 

Ned wakened abruptly from his revery. “You 
mean — you aren’t going to show me anything 
more? ” 

“ There’s nothing more you can’t learn by your¬ 
self — by hard experience. I’ve given you your 
map and your directions for the trap line. A baby 
couldn’t miss it. There’s traps on the wall — scat¬ 
ter ’em along between here and the Forks cabin. 
There you will find another bunch to put between 
there and Thirty-Mile cabin. So on clear around. 
Over your head you see the stretchers.” 



216 


The Isle of Retribution 


Ned looked up, and over the rafters, among other 
supplies, were laid a large number of small boards, 
planed smooth and of different sizes. 

“ I’ve shown you how to set your traps, for every 
kind of an animal,” Doomsdorf went on. “You 
ought to be able to do the rest. By the time you 
come around, we’ll likely have freezing weather — 
that means you’ll have to thaw out your animals be¬ 
fore you skin them. If it’s a big animal, dead in 
the trap, too heavy to carry into camp, you’ll have 
to make a fire in the snow and thaw him out there. 
Otherwise bring ’em in. You saw me skin that 
otter I shot — skin all the smaller animals the same 
way. Simply split ’em under the legs and peel ’em 
out toward the head, as you would a banana. Of 
course you’ll spoil plenty of skins at first, so far as 
market value is concerned, but they’ll be all right 
for your own use. The closer you can skin them, 
the less fat you leave on the pelts, the less you’ll 
have to flesh them when you get to your cabin. 
When you can’t strip off any more fat, turn ’em 
wrong side out on one of those boards — stretch¬ 
ing them tight. Use the biggest board you can put 
in. Then hang ’em up in the cabin to dry. A skin 
like a beaver, that you slit up the belly and which 
comes off almost round, nail on the wall. All the 
little tricks of the trade will come in time. 

“Here and here and here” — he paused, to 
put in Ned’s hands a clasp hunting knife, razor 
sharp, a small pocket hone to whet his tools, and a 
light axe that had been hanging back of the stove — 
“ are some things you’ll need. The time will come 



217 


The Isle of Retribution 

when you’ll need snowshoes, too. I ought to make 
you make them yourself, but you’d never get it 
done and I’d never get any furs. There’s a pair on 
the rafters. Now I’m going to tramp back to the 
cabin to spend the night — in more agreeable com¬ 
pany.” 

For a moment the two men stood regarding each 
other in absolute silence. Then Foomsdorf’s keen 
ears, eager for such sounds, caught the whisper of 
Ned’s troubled breathing. Presently a leering 
smile flashed through the blond beard. 

It was as he thought. Ned’s mind was no longer 
on furs. His face had been drawn and dark with 
fatigue, but now a darker cloud spread across it, 
like a storm through open skies, as some blood¬ 
curdling thought made ghastly progress through 
his brain. At first it was only startled amazement, 
then swift disbelief — the manifestation of that 
strange quirk in human consciousness that ever 
tries to shield the spirit from the truth — and 
finally terror, stark and without end. It showed in 
the tragic loosening of every facial muscle; in the 
cold drops that came out at the edge of the brown, 
waving hair; in the slow, fixed light in his eyes. 

This was what Doomsdorf loved. He had seen 
the same look in the faces of prisoners — newly 
come to a stockade amid the snow and still hopeful 
that the worst they had heard had been overdrawn 
— on seeing certain implements of initiation; and 
it had been a source of considerable amusement to 
him. This was the thing that his diseased soul 
craved. As the young man reached imploring 




218 


The Isle of Retribution 

hands to his own great forearms, he hurled him 
away with a ringing laugh. 

“You mean — you and Lenore will be 
alone-” Ned asked. 

“ You saw the squaw start out with Bess? ” was 
the triumphant answer. “ But why should you care ? 
It was Lenore’s own wish to stay. She’d take me 
and comfort any time, sooner than endure the cold 
with you. Of such stuff, my boy, are women 
made.” 

The hands reached out again, clasping tight upon 
Doomsdorf’s forearms. Ned’s face, lifeless and 
white as a stone, was no longer loose with terror. 
A desperate fury had brought him to the verge of 
madness. 

“That’s a foul lie!” he shouted, reckless of 

Doomsdorf’s retaliation. “ She didn’t dream that 

you would do that-” 

•/ 

Dooms dor f struck him off, hurling him against 
the wall; but it was not with the idea of inflicting 
punishment. Amused at his impotent rage, his 
blow was not the driving shoulder blow which, be¬ 
fore now, had broken a human jaw to fragments. 
Nor did he carry through, hammering his victim 
into insensibility at his leisure. 

“ That gets you a little, doesn’t it? ” he taunted. 
Ned straightened, staring at him as if he were a 
ghost. “ Your sweetheart — that you’d sworn was 
yours to the last ditch! I don’t mean that she’d 
give herself willingly to me — yet. She’s just the 
kind of girl I’d expect a weakling like yourself to 
pick out—the tyjDe that would sooner go wrong 





The Isle of Retribution 219 

than endure hardship. And that’s why she’s more 
or less safe, for the time being at least, from me. 
Even if Sindy wasn’t coming back home to-night 
— probably already there — you wouldn’t have to 
fear.” 

Ned could not speak, but Doomsdorf looked at 
him with the fire of a zealot in his eyes. 

“ I don’t want anything that’s that easy,” he said 
with infinite contempt. “ Sometimes the game is 
harder. I take back something I inferred a mo¬ 
ment ago — that all women would do the same. 
The best of them, the most of them, still will go 
through hell for an idea; and that’s the kind whose 
spirit is worth while to break. Do you know any 
one who right now, likely enough, is trudging along 
through this hellish snow with forty pounds of traps 
over her back? ” 

Ned shuddered, hurling off his doubt, believing 
yet in the fidelity of his star. “ I don’t know, and 
I don’t care,” he answered. 

“ That’s what Bess Gilbert is doing, and you 
know it. There, young man, is a woman worthy of 
my steel! ” 

He turned and strode out the door. Ned was 
left to his thoughts and the still, small voices of the 
waste places, alone with the wilderness night whose 
word was the master word of life, and with the wind 
that sobbed unhappy secrets as it swept his cabin 
roof. He couldn’t help but listen, there in the twi¬ 
light. Thus the work of training Ned Cornet’s 
soul went on, strengthening him to stand erect 
when that stern officer, the Truth, looked into his 




220 


The Isle of Retribution 


eyes; teaching him the mastery of that bright sword 
of fortitude and steadfastness whereby he could 
parry the most pitiless blows of fate. 


XXI 


Thus began a week of trial for Ned. For the 
first time in his life he was thrown wholly upon his 
own resources, standing or falling' by his own 
worth. Should he fall insensible in the snow there 
were none to seek him and bring him into shelter. 
If he should go astray and miss the cabins there 
was no one to set him on the right path again. He 
was meeting the wilderness alone, and face to face. 

Cooking his meals, cutting the fuel and building 
the fires that kept him warm, meeting the storm in 
its fury and fighting a lone fight from the gray of 
dawn to the day’s gray close, Ned made the long 
circuit of his trap line. The qualities that carried 
him far in his home city — such things as wealth 
and position and culture — were as dust here. His 
reliance now was the axe on his shoulder and the 
hunting knife at his hip; but most of all his own 
stamina, his own steadfastness, the cunning of his 
brain and the strength of his sinews. And every 
day found him stronger and better able to meet the 
next. 

Certain muscles most used in tugging through 
the snow, seemingly worn to shreds the first day’s 
march, strengthened under the stress, and he found 
he did his daily stint with ever greater ease. Ever 
he handled the little, daily crises with greater skill, 
and this with less loss of vital energy: the crossing 




222 The Isle of Retribution 

of a swollen stream or a perilous morass; or the 
climbing of a slippery glacier. Every day the wil¬ 
derness unrolled its pages to his eyes. 

The little daily encounters with the wild life were 
ever a greater delight. He found pleasure in try¬ 
ing to guess the identity of the lesser, scurrying 
people he met on the trail: he found a moving 
beauty in the far-off glimpse of the running pack, 
in a vivid silhouette on the ridge at twilight; the 
sight of a bull caribou tossing his far-spreading 
antlers sent his blood moving fast in his veins. By 
the grace of the Red Gods he was afforded the ex¬ 
citement of being obliged to backtrack two hundred 
yards in order gracefully to yield the trail to a 
great, surly Alaskan bear already seeking a lair for 
his winter sleep. 

He crossed the divide to Forks cabin, followed 
the springs to Thirty-Mile cabin, descended to the 
sea, and along the shore to the home cabin, just as 
he had been told to do. He put out his traps as he 
went in what seemed to him the most likely places, 
using every wile Doomsdorf had taught him to in¬ 
crease his chances for a catch. In spite of the fact 
that he went alone, the second dav was ever so much 
easier than the first; and he came into the home 
cabin only painfully tired, but not absolutely ex¬ 
hausted, on the fifth. Of course he didn’t forget 
that, other things being equal, these first five days 
were his easiest days. Actual trapping had not yet 
started: he had not been obliged to stop, thaw out 
and skin such larger animals as would be found 
dead in his traps; nor yet work late into the night 


228 


The Isle of Retribution 

fleshing and stretching the pelts. A greater factor 
was the moderate weather: light snowfall and tem¬ 
perature above freezing, a considerable variance 
from the deadly blizzards that would ensue. 

All through the five days he had strengthened 
himself with the thought that Lenore awaited him 
at the journey’s end; and she had never seemed so 
lovely to him as when, returning in the gray twi¬ 
light, he saw her standing framed in the lighted 
doorway of the home cabin. She had suffered no 
ill-treatment in his absence. The great fear that 
had been upon his heart was groundless, after all: 
her face was fresh, her eyes bright, she was not lost 
in despair. In spite of his aching muscles, his face 
lighted with hopefulness and relief that was almost 
happiness. 

Doubtless it was his own eagerness that made her 
seem so slow in coming into his arms; and his own 
great fire that caused her to seem to lack warmth. 
He had been boyishly anticipatory, foolishly exul¬ 
tant. Yet it was all sweet enough. The girl flut¬ 
tered a single instant in his arms, and he felt repaid 
for everything. 

“ Let me go,” she whispered tensely, when his 
arms tried to hold her. “ Don’t let Doomsdorf see. 
He might kill you-” 

But it came about that she didn’t finish the warn¬ 
ing. Presently she felt his arms turn to steel. She 
felt herself thrust back until her eyes looked 
straight into his. 

She had never seen Ned in this mood before. In¬ 
deed she couldn’t ever remember experiencing the 



224 


The Isle of Retribution 

sensation that swept her now: secretly appalled at 
him, burnt with his fire, wavering beneath his will. 
She didn’t know he had arms like that. His face, 
when she tried to meet it, hardly seemed his own.. 
The flesh was like gray iron, the eyes cold as stones. 

“What has Doomsdorf to do with it?” he de¬ 
manded. “ Has he any claim on you? ” 

“ Of course not,” she hastened to reply. “ He’s 
treated me as well as could be expected. But you 
know — he makes claims on us all.” 

The fact could not be denied. Ned turned from 
her, nestling to the fire for warmth. 

The happiness he had expected in this long- 
awaited night had failed to materialize. He ate 
his great meal, sat awhile in sporadic conversa¬ 
tion with the girl in the snug cabin; then went 
wearily to his blankets. He hardly knew what was 
missing. Her beauty was no less; it was enhanced, 
if anything, by the flush of the wind on her cheeks. 
Yet she didn’t understand what he had been doing, 
what he had been through. He held her interest 
but slightly as he told of his adventures on the trail. 
When in turn she talked to him, it was of her own 
wrongs; and the old quick, eager sympathy some¬ 
how failed to reach his heart. But it was all he 
could expect on this terrible island. He must 
thank what gods there were for the one kiss she had 
given him—and be content. All happiness was 
clouded here. 

Often, in the little hour after supper about the 
stove, he wakened from his revery to find that he 
had been thinking about Bess. She had come in 


225 


The Isle of Retribution 

from her line the previous day and had gone out 
again; and he had not dreamed that her absence 
could leave such a gap in their little circle. He had 
hardly regarded her at all, yet he found himself 
missing her. She was always so high-spirited, en¬ 
couraging him with her own high heart. Of course 
the very fact that they were just three, exiled 
among foes, would make her absence keenly felt. 
The mere bond of common humanity would do that. 
Yet he found himself wishing that he had shown 
greater appreciation of her kindness, her courage, 
her sweet solicitude for him. On her lonely trap 
line out in the wastes it was as if she had gone for¬ 
ever. He found himself resenting the fact that 
Lenore had but cold assent to his praise of her, 
wholly unappreciative of the fact that her own ease 
was due largely to Bess’s offer to do additional 
work. 

But his blankets gave him slumber, and he rose 
in the early hours, breakfasted, and started out on 
his lonely trap line. He was not a little excited as 
to the results of this morning’s tramp. Every skin 
he took was his, to protect his own body from the 
bitter, impending cold. 

The first few traps had not been sprung. Out¬ 
witting the wild creatures was seemingly not the 
easy thing he had anticipated. The bait had been 
stolen from a marten trap at the edge of the bar¬ 
rens, but the jaws had failed to go home, and a sub¬ 
sequent light snowfall had concealed the tracks by 
which he might have identified the thief. Was 
this the answer to his high hopes? But he had 


226 The Isle of Retribution 

cause to halt when he neared the trap on the beaver 
dam. 

For a moment he couldn’t locate the trap. Then 
he saw that the wire, fastened securely to the bank, 
had become mysteriously taut. Not daring to hope 
he began to tug it in. 

At the end of the wire he found his trap, and in 
the trap was a large beaver, drowned and in prime 
condition. 

The moment was really a significant one for Ned. 
The little traps of steel, placed here and there 
through the wilderness, had seemed a doubtful 
project at best; but now they had shown results. 
The incident gave him added confidence in himself 
and his ability to battle successfully these perilous 
wilds. The rich, warm skin would help to clothe 
him, and he would easily catch others to complete 
his wardrobe. 

The beaver was of course not frozen; and the 
skin stripped off easily under the little, sawing 
strokes of his skinning knife. He was rather sur¬ 
prised at its size. It came off nearly round, and it 
would stretch fully thirty-two inches in diameter. 
Washing it carefully, he put it over his back and 
started on. 

Other traps yielded pelts in his long day’s march. 
The trap on the beaver landing contained a musk¬ 
rat; he found several more of the same furred ro¬ 
dents in his traps along the creek; and small skins 
though they were, he had a place for every one. 
Once an otter, caught securely by the hind leg, 
showed fight and had to be dispatched by a blow on 


227 


The Isle of Retribution 

the head with a club; and once he was startled when 
a mink, scarcely larger than his hand, leaped from 
the snowy weeds, trap and all, straight for his 
ankle. 

There was no more ferocious creature in all the 
mammalian world than this. “ Little Death,” was 
a name for him in an aboriginal tongue; and it was 
perfectly in accord with his disposition. His eyes 
were scarlet; he opened his rapacious jaws so wide 
that they resembled those of a deadly serpent; he 
screamed again and again in the most appalling 
fury. This was the demon of the Little People: the 
snaky Stealth that murdered the nestlings in the 
dead of night; the cruel and remorseless hunter 
whose red eyes froze the snowshoe hare with terror. 

Tired out, barely able to stand erect, yet wholly 
content with his day’s catch, Ned made the cabin in 
the twilight, built his fire, and cooked his meager 
supper. After supper he skinned out such little 
animals as he had not taken time to skin on the 
trail, fleshed and stretched his pelts, then hung 
them up to dry. He was almost too tired to re¬ 
move his wet garments when the work was done. 
He hardly remembered drawing the blankets over 
him. 

Thus ended the first of a long series of arduous 
days. The hardship was incomparably greater 
than that endured by the great run of those hardy 
men, the northern trappers, not only because of his 
inadequate clothes, but because the line had been 
laid out by a giant’s rule. Doomsdorf had spaced 
his cabins according to his own idea of a full day’s 


228 


The Isle of Retribution 


work, and that meant they were nearly twice as far 
apart as those of the average trap line. Bess had 
been given the line he had laid out for his squaw, 
hardly half so rigorous, yet all the average man 
would care to attempt. 

But in spite of the hardship, the wrack of cold, 
the fatigue that crept upon him like a dreadful 
sickness, Ned had many moments of comparative 
pleasure. One of these moments, seemingly yield¬ 
ing him much more delight than the occasion war¬ 
ranted, occurred at the end of the second day of 
actual trapping. 

This day’s march had taken him to the Forks 
cabin; and there, as twilight drew about him, he was 
amazed to hear the nearing sound of footsteps in 
the snow. Some one was coming laboriously to¬ 
ward him, with the slow, dragging tread of deep 
fatigue. 

The thing made no sense at all. Human com¬ 
panionship, in these gray and melancholy wastes, 
was beyond the scope of the imagination. For a 
moment he stared in dumb bewilderment like a man 
at the first seizure of madness. Then he sprang 
through the door and out on the snowy slope. 

It was not just a whim of the fancy. A dim 
form moved toward him out of the gray ness, has¬ 
tening, now that his lantern light gleamed on the 
snow. Presently Ned saw the truth. 

It was Bess, of course. At this point their lines 
coincided. It was her third stop, and since she had 
left the home cabin a day ahead of him, she was per¬ 
fectly on schedule. He could hardly explain the 


229 


The Isle oi Retribution 

delight that flashed through him at the sight of her. 
In this loneliness and silence mere human compan¬ 
ionship was blessing enough. 

His appearance in the doorway was not a sur¬ 
prise to Bess. She had counted the days carefully, 
and she knew his schedule would bring him here. 
But now she was too near dead with fatigue to give 
him more than a smile. 

The night that ensued was one of revelation to 
Ned. His first cause of wonder was the well o'f 
reserve strength that suddenly manifested itself in 
the hour of need. He had not dreamed but that he 
was at the edge of collapse from the long day’s 
toil; his brain had been dull with fatigue, and he 
was almost too tired to build his fire, yet he found 
himself a tower of strength in caring for the ex¬ 
hausted girl. It was as if his own fatigue had mys¬ 
teriously vanished when he became aware of hers. 

With scarcely a word he lifted her to the cot, 
covered her with a blanket, and in spite of her pro¬ 
tests, went speedily about the work of cooking her 
supper. It was a strange thing what pleasure it 
gave him to see the warm glow of the life stream 
flow back into her blanched cheeks, and her deep, 
blue eyes fill again with light. Heretofore this 
twilight hour, at the end of a bitter day, had been 
the worst hour of all; but to-night it was the best. 
He hadn’t dreamed that so much pleasure could be 
gained simply by serving others. In addition to 
some of the simple staples that he found among the 
cabin’s supplies, he served her, as a great surprise, 
the plump, white breast of a ptarmigan that he had 


230 Tbe Isle of Retribution 

found in one of his ermine traps; and it was some¬ 
how a deep delight to see her little, white teeth 
stripping the flesh from the bone. He warmed her 
up with hot coffee; then sat beside her while the 
night deepened at the window. 

They had a quiet hour of talk before he drew the 
blankets about her shoulders and left her to drift 
away in sleep. He was unexplainably exultant; 
light-hearted for all this drear waste that sur¬ 
rounded him. This little hut of logs was home, to¬ 
night. The cold could not come in; the wind would 
clamor at the roof in vain. 

He did her work for her to-night. He skinned 
the smaller animals she had brought in, then fleshed 
and stretched all the pelts she had taken. After 
preparing his own skins, he made a hard bed for 
himself on the floor of the hut. 

It was with real regret that they took different 
ways in the dawn. Ned’s last office was to prepare 
kindling for her use on her next visit to the cabin 
four days hence — hardly realizing that he was 
learning a little trick of the woodsman’s trade that 
would stand him in good stead in many a dreadful 
twilight to come. Only the veriest tenderfoot plans 
on cutting his kindling when he finishes his day’s 
toil. The tried woodsman, traveling wilderness 
trails, does such work in the morning, before fa¬ 
tigue lays hold of him. The thing goes farther: 
even when he does not expect to pass that way 
again he is careful to leave the kindling pile for the 
next comer. Like all the traditions of the North, 
it is founded on necessity: the few seconds thus 



231 


The Isle of Retribution 

saved in striking the flame have more than once, at 
the end of a bitter day, saved the flame of a sturdy 
life. This is the hour when seconds count. The 
hands are sometimes too cold to hold the knife: the 
tired spirit despairs at this labor of cutting fuel. It 
is very easy, then, to lie still and rest and let the cold 
take its toll. 

The trails of these two trappers often crossed, in 
the weeks to come. They kex^t close track of each 
other’s schedules, and they soon worked out a sys¬ 
tem whereby they could meet at the Forks cabin at 
almost every circuit. They arranged it wholly 
without embarrassment, each of them appreciating 
the other’s need for companionship. By running a 
few traps toward the interior from the forks, Bess 
made an excuse to take five days to her route; and 
for once Doomsdorf seemed to fail to see her real 
motive. Perhaps he thought she was merely try¬ 
ing to increase her catch, thus hoping to avoid the 
penalties he had threatened. 

Ned found to his amazement that they had many 
common interests. They were drawn together not 
only by their toil, and by their mutual fear of 
Doomsdorf’s lash; but they also shared a deep and 
growing interest in the wilderness about them. 
The wild life was an absorbing study in itself. 
They taught each other little tricks of the trapper’s 
trade, narrated the minor adventures of their daily 
toil; they were of mutual service in a hundred dif¬ 
ferent ways. No longer did Ned go about his work 
in the flimsy clothes of the city. Out of the pelts 
he had dried she helped to make him garments and 


232 


The Isle of Retribution 

moccasins as warm and serviceable as her own, sup¬ 
plied through an unexpected burst of generosity on 
Doomsdorf’s part soon after their arrival on the 
island. They brought their hardest problems to 
the Forks cabin and solved them together. 

As the winter advanced upon them, they found 
an increasing need of mutual help. The very prob¬ 
lem of living began to demand their best coopera¬ 
tion. The winter was more rigorous than they had 
ever dreamed in their most despairing moments, so 
that cooperation was no longer a matter of pleas¬ 
ure, but the stark issue of life itself. The spirit, 
alone and friendless, yielded quickly in such times 
as these. 

It got to be a mystery with them after while, why 
they hadn’t given up long since, instead of playing 
this dreadful, nightmare game to its ultimate end of 
horror and death. Why were they such fools as to 
keep up the hopeless fight, day after day through 
the intense cold, bending their backs to the killing 
labor, when at any moment they might find rest and 
peace? They did not have to look far. Freedom 
was just at their feet. Just to fall, to lie still; and 
the frost would creep swiftly enough into their 
veins. Sleep would come soon, the delusion of 
warmth, and then Doomsdorf’s lash could never 
threaten them again. But they found no answer to 
the question. It was as if a power beyond them¬ 
selves was holding them up. It was as if there was 
a debt to pay before they could find rest. 

Day after day the snow sifted down, ever laying 
a deeper covering over the island, bending down 


233 


The Isle of Retribution 

the limbs of the strong trees, obscuring all things 
under this cold infinity of white. The traps had to 
be laboriously dug out and reset, again and again. 
These were the days when the old “ sourdough ” 
on the mainland remained within his cabin, merely 
venturing to the door after fuel; but Ned and Bess 
knew no such mercy. Their fate was to struggle 
on through those ever-deepening drifts until they 
died. Driven by a cruel master they dared not rest 
even a day. Walking was no longer possible with¬ 
out snowshoes; and even these sank deep in the soft 
drifts, the webs filling with snow, so that to walk a 
mile was the most bitter, heart-breaking labor. 
Yet their fate was to plow on, one day upon an¬ 
other, — strange, dim figures in the gray, whirling 
flakes — the full, bitter distances between their 
cabins. To try to lay out meant death, certain and 
very soon. Moreover they could not even move 
with their old leisure. The days were constantly 
shorter, just a ray of light between great curtains 
of darkness; and only by mushing at the fastest 
possible walking pace were they able to make it 
through. 

When the skies cleared, an undreamed degree of 
cold took possession of the land. Seemingly every 
trickle of moving water was already frozen hard, 
the sea sheltered by the island chain was an infinity 
of ice, snow-swept as was the rest of the weary 
landscape, but now the breath froze on the beard, 
and the eyelids one upon another. The fingers 
froze in the instant that the fur gloves were re¬ 
moved, and the hottest fires could hardly warm the 


234 


The Isle of Retribution 


cabins. And on these clear, bitter nights the 
Northern Lights were an ineffable glory in the sky. 

A strange atmosphere of unreality began to 
cloud their familiar world. They found it increas¬ 
ingly hard to believe in their own consciousnesses; 
to convince themselves they were still struggling 
onward instead of lying lifeless in the snow. It 
was all dim like a dream, — snow and silence and 
emptiness, and the Northern Lights lambent in the 
sky. And for a time this was the only mercy that 
remained. Their perceptions were blunted: they 
were hardly aware of the messages of pain and tor¬ 
ture that the nerves brought to the brain. And 
then, as ever, there came a certain measure of read¬ 
justment. 

Their bodies built up to endure even such hard¬ 
ship as this. The fact that the snow at last packed 
was a factor too: they were able to skim over the 
white crust at a pace even faster than the best time 
they had made in early fall. They mastered the 
trapper’s craft, learning how to skin a beaver with 
the fewest number of strokes, and in such a manner 
that the minimum amount of painstaking fleshing 
was required; and how to bait and set the traps in 
the fastest possible time. They learned their own 
country, and thus the best, easiest, and quickest 
routes from cabin to cabin. 

The result was that at last the companionship 
between Bess and Ned, forgotten in the drear hor¬ 
ror of the early winter months, was revived. Again 
they had pleasant hours about the stove at the 
Forks cabin, sometimes working at pelts, some- 



235 


The Isle of Retribution 

times even enjoying the unheard-of luxury of a few 
minutes of idleness. While before they had come 
in almost too tired to be aware of each other’s 
existence, now they were fresh enough to exchange 
a few, simple friendly words — even, on rare occa¬ 
sions, to enjoy a laugh together over some little dis¬ 
aster of the trail. The time came when they knew 
each other extremely well. In their hours of talk 
they plumbed each other’s most secret views and 
philosophies, and helped to solve each other’s spiri¬ 
tual problems. 

Very naturally, and scarcely aware of the fact 
themselves, they had come to be the best of com¬ 
panions. As Ned once said, when a night of par¬ 
ticular beauty stirred his imagination and loosened 
his stern lips, they had been “ through hell ” to¬ 
gether; and the finest, most enduring companion¬ 
ship was only to have been expected. But it went 
farther than a quiet sort of satisfaction in each 
other’s presence. Each had got to know approxi¬ 
mately what the other would do in any given case; 
and that meant that they afforded mutual security. 
They had mutual trust and confidence, which was 
no little satisfaction on this island of peril. Blunted 
and dulled before, their whole consciousness now 
seemed to sharpen and waken; they not only re¬ 
garded each other with greater confidence: their 
whole outlook had undergone significant change. 
During the first few months of early winter they 
had moved over their terrible trails like mechanical 
machines, doing all they had to do by instinct, 
whether eating, sleeping, or working; self-con- 


236 


The Isle of Retribution 

sciousness had been almost forgotten, self-identity 
nearly lost. But now they were themselves again, 
looking forward keenly to their little meetings, 
their interests ever reaching farther, the first begin¬ 
nings of a new poise and self-confidence upon them. 
They had stood the gaff! They had come through. 

Ned’s hours with Lenore, however, gave him less 
satisfaction than they had at first. She somehow 
failed to understand what he had been through. 
He had found out what real hardship meant, and 
he couldn’t help but resent, considering her own 
comparative comfort, her attitude of self-pity. Al¬ 
ways she wept for deliverance from the island, 
never letting Ned forget that his own folly had 
brought her hither; always expecting solicitude in¬ 
stead of giving it; always willing to receive all the 
help that Ned could give her, but never willing to 
sacrifice one whit of her own comfort to ease his lot. 
Because he had done man’s work, and stood up 
under it, he found himself expecting more and more 
from her, — and failing to receive it. Her lack of 
sportsmanship was particularly distressing to him 
at a time when sobbing and complaints could only 
tear down his own hard-fought-for spirit to endure. 
Most of all he resented her attitude toward Bess. 
She had no sympathy for what the girl had been 
through, even refusing to listen to Ned’s tales of 
her. And she seemed to resent all of Ned’s kind¬ 
nesses to her. 

Slowly, by the school of hardship and conquest 
over hardship, Ned Cornet was winning a new self- 
mastery, a new self-confidence to take the place of 



237 


The Isle of Retribution 

the self-conceit that had brought him to disaster. 
But the first real moment of wakening was also one 
of peril,— on the trapping trail one clear after¬ 
noon toward the bitter close of January. 

He had been quietly following that portion of 
his trap line that followed the timber belt between 
the Twelve-Mile cabin and Forks cabin, and the 
blazed trail had led him into the depths of a heavy 
thicket of young spruce. He had never felt more 
secure. The midwinter silence lay over the land; 
the cold and fearful beauty of a snow-swept wilder¬ 
ness had hold of his spirit; the specter of terror and 
death that haunted these wintry wastes was no¬ 
where manifest to his sight. The only hint of dan¬ 
ger that the Red Gods afforded him did not half 
penetrate his consciousness and did not in the least 
call him from his pleasant fancies. It was only a 
glimpse of green where the snow had been shaken 
from a compact little group of sapling spruce just 
beside one of his sets. Likely the wind had caught 
the little trees just right; perhaps some unfortunate 
little fur-bearer, a marten perhaps, or a fisher, had 
sprung back and forth among the little trees in an 
effort to free himself from the trap. He walked 
up quietly, located the tree to which the trap chain 
was attached, bent and started to draw the trap 
from the small, dense thicket whence some creature 
had dragged it. He was only casually interested 
in what manner of poor, frozen creature would be 
revealed between the steel jaws. The beauty of 
the day had wholly taken his mind from his work. 

One moment, and the forest was asleep about 


238 


The Isle of Retribution 


him; the little trees looked sadly burdened with 
their loads of snow. The next, and the man was 
hurled to the ground by a savage, snarling thing 
that leaped from the covert like the snow demon it 
was; and white, gleaming fangs were flashing to¬ 
ward his throat. 


XXII 


Except for the impediment of the trap on the 
creature’s foot, there would have been hut one blow 
to that battle in the snow. White fangs would 
have gone home where they were aimed, and all of 
Ned Cornet’s problems would have been simply 
and promptly solved. There would have been a 
few grotesque sounds, carrying out among the im¬ 
passive trees, — such sounds as a savage hound 
utters over his bone, and perhaps, a strange motif 
carrying through, a few weird whisperings, ever 
growing fainter, from a torn throat that could no 
longer convey the full tones of speech; and perhaps 
certain further motion, perhaps a wild moment of 
odd, frenzied leaping back and forth, fangs flashing 
here and there over a form that still shivered as if 
with bitter cold. But these things would not have 
endured long: the sounds, like wakeful children, 
speedily hiding and losing themselves in the great 
curtains of silence and the wilderness itself swiftly 
returning to its slumber. Drifting snow dust, un¬ 
der the wind, would have soon paled and finally 
obliterated the crimson stain among the little 
trees. 

Ned would have been removed from Dooms- 
dorf’s power in one swiftly passing instant, the wil¬ 
derness forgetting the sound of his snowshoes in its 



240 


The Isle of Retribution 


silent places. All things would be, so far as mortal 
eyes can discern, as if his soul had never found 
lodging in his body. 

This was not some little fur-bearer, helpless in 
the trap. It was no less a creature than that great 
terror of the snow, a full-grown Arctic wolf, almost 
as white as the drifts he hunted through. Only the 
spruce trees knew how this fierce and cunning 
hunter came to snare his foot in the jaws of a mar¬ 
ten trap. Nor could any sensible explanation be 
made why the great wolf did not break the chain 
with one lunge of his powerful body, instead of 
slinking into the coverts and waiting developments. 
The ways of the wild creatures quite often fail of 
any kind of an explanation; and it is a bold woods¬ 
man who will say what any particular creature will 
do under any particular condition. When he saw 
Ned’s body within leaping range, he knew the des¬ 
perate impulse to fight. 

None of the lower creatures are introspective in 
regard to their impulses. They follow them with¬ 
out regard to consequences. The wolf leaped with 
incredible speed and ferocity. The human body is 
not built to stand erect under such a blow: the 
mighty, full-antlered caribou would have gone 
down the same way. 

The chain of the trap broke like a spring as he 
leaped. The steel leash that is often used to re¬ 
strain a savage dog would have broken no less 
quickly. There was no visible recoil: what little 
resistance there was seemingly did not in the least 
retard the blow. It did, however, affect its accu- 


The Isle of Retribution 241 

racy. That fact alone saved Ned from instant 
death. 

But as the wolf lunged toward him to complete 
his work — after the manner of some of the beasts 
of prey when they fail to kill at the first leap — an 
inner man of might seemed to waken in Ned’s 
prone body. A great force came to life within him. 
He lunged upward and met the wolf in the teeth. 

Months before, when a falling tree had lashed 
down at him, he had seen a hint of this same, innate 
power. It was nothing peculiar to him: most men, 
sooner or later, see it manifested in some hour of 
crisis. But since that long-ago day it had been im¬ 
measurably enhanced and increased. While his 
outer, physical body had been developing, it had 
been strengthening too. Otherwise it would have 
been of little avail against that slashing, leaping, 
frenzied demon of the snow. 

This inner power hurled him into a position of 
defense; but it would have saved him only an in¬ 
stant if it had not been for its staunch allies of 
muscles of tempered steel. For months they had 
been in training for just such a test as this; but 
Ned himself had never realized anything of their 
true power. He hadn’t known that his nerves were 
as finely keyed as a delicate electrical instrument, 
so that they might convey the commands of his 
brain with precision and dispatch. He suddenly 
wakened to find himself a marvelous fighting ma¬ 
chine, with certain powers of resistance against 
even such a foe as this. 

A great surge of strength, seemingly without 




242 


The Isle of Retribution 


physical limitation, poured through him. In one 
great bound he overcame the deadly handicap of 
his own prone position, springing up with terrible, 
reaching, snatching hands and clasping arms. 
Some way, he did not know how, he hurled that 
hundred pounds of living steel from his body before 
the white fangs could go home. 

But there was not an instant’s pause. Desperate 
with fury, the wolf sprang in again, — a long, 
white streak almost too fast for the eye to follow. 
But he did not find Ned at a disadvantage now. 
The man had wrenched to one side to hurl the crea¬ 
ture away, but he had already caught his balance 
and had braced to meet the second onslaught. A 
white-hot fury had descended upon him, too — ob¬ 
literating all sense of terror, yielding him wholly to 
such fighting instincts as might be innate within 
him. Nor did they betray him, these inner voices. 
They directed the frightful power of his muscles in 
the one way that served him best. 

Ned did not wait to catch the full force of that 
blow. His powerful thighs, made iron hard in 
these last bitter weeks, drove him out and up in an 
offensive assault. His long body seemed to meet 
that of the wolf full in the air. Then they rolled 
together into the drifts. 

Ned landed full on top of the body of the wolf; 
and with a mighty surge of his whole frame he tried 
to strengthen his own advantageous position. His 
mighty knee clasped at the animal’s breast, pressing 
with all his strength with the deadly intention of 
crushing the ribs upon the wild heart. And he 


248 


The isle of Retribution 

gave no heed to the clawing feet. His instincts 
told him surely that in the white fangs alone lay his 
danger. With one arm he encircled the shaggy 
neck; with the other he tried to turn the great 
muzzle from his flesh. 

The wolf wriggled free, sending home one vicious 
bite into the flesh just under the arm; and for a 
breath both contestants seemed to be playing some 
weird, pinwheel game in the snow. The silence of 
the everlasting wild was torn to shreds by the noise 
of battle, — the frantic snarling of the wolf, the 
wild shouts of this madman who had just found his 
strength. No moment of Ned’s life had ever been 
fraught with such passion; none had ever been of 
such lightning vividness. He fought as he had 
never dreamed he could fight; and the glory of 
battle was upon him. 

It might be that Doomsdorf could have picked 
up the great white creature by the scruff of the neck 
and beat his brains out against a tree. Yet Ned 
knew, in some cool, back part of his mind, that this 
was a foe worthy of the best steel of any man, how¬ 
ever powerful. Even men of unusually great 
strength would have been helpless in an instant be¬ 
fore those slashing fangs. Yet never for an in¬ 
stant did he lose hope. Bracing himself, he clamped 
down again with mighty knees on the wolf’s breast. 

Again the slashing fangs caught him, but he was 
wholly unaware of the pain. The muscles of his 
arms snapped tight against the skin, the great ten¬ 
dons drew, and he jerked the mighty head around 
and back. 



244 The Isle of Retribution 

Then for a moment both contestants seemed to 
lie motionless in the snow. The wolf lay like a 
great hound before the fireside,—fore legs 
stretched in front, body at full length. Ned 
lay at one side, the animal’s body between his knees, 
one arm around his neck, the other thrusting back 
the great head. The whole issue of life or death, 
victory or defeat, was suddenly immensely sim¬ 
plified. It depended solely on whether or not Ned 
had the physical might to push back the shaggy 
head and shatter the vertebrge. 

There was no sense of motion. Rather they were 
like figures in metal, a great artist’s theme of in¬ 
credible stress. Ned’s face was drawn and black 
from congested blood. His lips were drawn back, 
the tendons of his hand, free*of the glove, seemed 
about to break through the skin. For that long 
moment Ned called on every ounce of strength of 
his body and soul. Only his body’s purely physical 
might could force back the fierce head the ghastly 
inch that was needed; only the high-born spirit of 
strength, the mighty urge by which man holds do¬ 
minion over earth and sea, could give him resolu¬ 
tion to stand the incredible strain. 

Time stood still. A thousand half-crazed fancies 
flew through his mind. His life blood seemed to be 
starting from his pores, and his heart was tearing 
itself to shreds in his breast. But the wolf was 
quivering now. Its eyes were full of strange, un¬ 
worldly fire. And then Ned gave a last, terrific 
wrench. 

A bone broke with a distinct crack in the utter 


245 


The Isle of Retribution 

silence. And as he fell forward, spent, the great 
white form slacked down and went limp in his 
arms. 

Like a man who had been asleep Ned regained 
his feet. The familiar world of snow and forest 
rushed back to him, deep in the enchantment of the 
winter silence; and it was as if the battle had never 
occurred. Such warlike sounds as had been ut¬ 
tered were smothered in the stillness. 

Yet the sleeve of his fur coat was torn, and dark 
red drops were dripping from his fingers. They 
made crimson spots in the immaculate snow. And 
just at his feet a white wolf lay impotent, never 
again to strike terror into his heart by its wild, un¬ 
earthly chant on the ridge. The two had met, here 
in the wolf’s own snows; and now one lay dead at 
his conqueror’s feet. 

Whose was the strength that had laid him low! 
Whose mighty muscles had broken that powerful 
neck! Yivid consciousness swept back to Ned; and 
with it a deep and growing exultation that thrilled 
the inmost chords of his being. It was an ancient 
madness, the heritage of savage days when man 
and beast fought for dominance in the open places; 
but it had not weakened and dimmed in the cen¬ 
turies. His eye kindled, and he stood shivering 
with excitement over his dead. 

He had conquered. He had fought his way to 
victory. And was there any reason in heaven or 
earth why he should not fight on to freedom — 
out of Doomsdorf’s power? The moving spirit of 
inspiration seemed to bear him aloft. 


246 


The Isle of Retribution 

Drunk with his own triumph, Ned could not im¬ 
mediately focus his attention on any definite train 
of thought. At first he merely gave himself up to 
dreams, a luxury that since the first day on the 
island he had never permitted himself. For many 
moments after the exultation of his victory had be¬ 
gun to pass away, he was still so entranced by 
dreams of freedom that he could not consider ways 
and means. 

The word freedom had come to have a tangible 
meaning for him in these last dreadful months; its 
very idea was dear beyond any power of his to tell. 
It was so beloved a thing that at first his cold logic 
could not take hold of it: its very thought brought 
a luster as of tears to his eyes and a warm glow, 
as in the first drifting of sleep, to his brain. * He 
had found out what freedom meant and how un¬ 
speakably beautiful it was. In his native city, how¬ 
ever, he had taken it as a matter of course. Be¬ 
cause it was everywhere around him he was no more 
conscious of it than the air he breathed; and he felt 
secret scorn of much of the sentimental eloquence 
concerning it. It had failed to get home to him, 
and many of his generation had forgotten it, just 
as they had forgotten the Author of their lives. It 
was merely something that feeble old men, amus¬ 
ing in their earnestness and their badges of the 
Grand Army so proudly worn on their tattered 
clothes, spoke of with a curious, deep solemnity, 
which a scattered few of his friends, from certain 
hard-fighting divisions, had learned on battlefields 
in France; but which was of little importance in his 


247 


The Isle of Retribution 

own life. When he did think of it at all he was 
very likely to confuse it with license. Now and 
then, when heady liquor had hold of him, he had 
amused his friends with quite a lecture concerning 
freedom, — particularly in its relation to the Vol¬ 
stead act. But the old urge and devotion that was 
the life theme of hundreds of generations that had 
preceded him had seemed cold in his spirit. 

He had learned the truth up here. He had 
found out it was the outer gate to all happiness; 
and everything else worth while was wholly de¬ 
pendent upon it. As he stood in this little snowy 
copse beside the dead wolf, even clearer vision came 
to him concerning it. Was it not the dream of the* 
ages? Was not all struggle upward toward this 
one star,—not only economic and religious free¬ 
dom, but freedom from the tyranny of the elements, 
from the scourge of disease, from the soiling hand 
of ignorance and w r ant? And what quality made 
for dominance as much as love of freedom? 

It was a familiar truth that no race was great 
without this love. Suddenly he saw that this was 
the first quality of greatness, whether in nations or 
individuals. The degree of this love was the de¬ 
gree of worth itself; and only the fawning weak¬ 
ling, the soul lost to honor and self-respect, was 
content to live beneath a master’s lash when there 
was a fighting chance for liberty! 

A fighting chance! The phrase meant nothing 
less than the chance of death. But all through the 
Iona roll of the centuries the bravest men had de- 
fied this chance; and they would not lift their hel- 


248 


The Isle of Retribution 

mets to those that eschewed it. But now he knew 
the truth of that stern old law of tribes and nations, 
— a law sometimes forgotten yet graven on the 
everlasting stone — that he who will not risk his 
life for liberty does not deserve to live it. The 
thing held good with him now. It held good with 
Bess and Lenore as well. 

That was the test! It was the last, cruel trial in 
the Training Camp of Life. 

Deeply moved and exalted, he lifted his face to 
the cold, blue skies as if for strength. For the in¬ 
stant he stood almost motionless, oblivious to his 
wounds and his torn clothes, a figure of unmistak¬ 
able dignity in those desolate drifts. He knew what 
he must do. He too must stand trial, bravely and 
without flinching. For Ned Cornet had come into 
his manhood. 



XXIII 


In a little while Ned stripped the pelt from the 
warm body of the wolf and continued down his line 
of traps. He was able to think more coherently 
now and consider methods and details. And by the 
same token of clear thought, he was brought face 
to face with the fact of the almost insuperable ob¬ 
stacles in his path. 

For all he could see now, Doomsdorf had sur¬ 
rounded them with a stone wall. He had seem¬ 
ingly thought of everything, prepared for every 
contingency, and left them not the slightest gate¬ 
way to hope. 

Plans for freedom first of all seemingly had to 
include Doomsdorf’s death. That was the first es¬ 
sential, and the last. Could thev succeed in strik- 
ing the life from their master, they could wait in 
the cabin until the trader Intrepid should touch 
their island in the spring. It can be said for Ned 
that he conjectured upon the plan without the 
slightest whisper of remorse, the least degree of 
false sentiment. The fact that their master was, 
more or less, a human being did not change the 
course of his thought whatever. He would hurl 
that wicked soul out of the world with never an 
instant’s pity, and his only prayer would be that it 
mmht fall into the real hell that he had tried to 
imitate on earth. There could be no question about 


250 


The Isle of Retribution 

that. If, through some mercy, the brute lay help¬ 
less for a single second at his feet, it would be time 
enough for the deed Ned had in mind. His arm 
would never falter, his cruel axe would shatter 
down as pitilessly as upon some savage beast of the 
forest. He had not forgotten what the three of 
them had endured. 

The difficulty lay in finding an opening of at¬ 
tack. Doomsdorf’s rifle was never loaded except 
when it was in his arms, and he wore his pistol in 
his belt, day and night. For all his hopelessness, 
Ned had noticed, half inadvertently, that he always 
took precautions against a night attack. The 
squaw slept on the outside of their cot and would 
be as difficult to pass without arousing as a sleep¬ 
ing dog. The cabin itself was bolted, not to be 
entered without waking both occupants; and the 
three prisoners of course slept in the newer cabin. 

Bess had told him of Doomsdorf’s encounter 
with Knutsen, describing with particular emphasis 
the speed with which the murderer had whipped 
out his pistol. He could get it into action long be¬ 
fore Ned could lay bare his clasp knife. Indeed, 
mighty man that he was, he could crush Ned to 
earth with one bound at the latter’s first offensive 
movement. And Doomsdorf was always partic¬ 
ularly watchful when Ned carried his axe. 

Yet the fact remained that in his axe alone lay 
the only possible hope of success. Some time Ned 
might see an opportunity to swing it down: per¬ 
haps he could think of some wile to put Dooms¬ 
dorf at a disadvantage. It was inconceivable that 


251 


The Isle of Retribution 

they should try to escape without first rendering 
Doomsdorf helpless to follow them. They could 
attempt neither to conceal themselves on the island, 
or cross the ice straight to Tzar Island without the 
absolute certainty of being hunted down and pun¬ 
ished. What form that punishment would take 
Ned dared not guess. 

It was true that Doomsdorf kept but a perfunc¬ 
tory watch over Ned and Bess while they plied 
their trap lines. But long ago he had explained 
to them the hopelessness of attempting to load their 
backs with food and strike off across the ice on the 
slim chance of encountering some inhabited island. 
The plan, he had said, had not been worth a 
thought, and even now, in spite of his new courage, 
Ned found that it promised little. In the first 
place, to venture out into that infinity of ice, where 
there was not a stick of fuel and the polar wind was 
an icy demon day and night, meant simply to die 
without great question or any considerable delay. 
The islands were many, but the gray ice between 
them insuperably broad and rough. As Dooms¬ 
dorf had said, they could not get much of a start; 
scarcely a day went by but that Doomsdorf, from 
some point of vantage where his daily hunting ex¬ 
cursions carried him, discerned the distant forms 
of one or both of his two trappers across the snowy 
barrens; and he would be quick to investigate if 
they were missing. His powerful legs and mighty 
strength would enable him to overtake the run- 
aways in the course of a few hours. But lastly, 
settling the matter once and for all, there was the 


252 


The Isle of Retribution 

subject of Lenore. He could neither smuggle her 
out nor leave her to Doomsdorf’s vengeance. 

The plan might be worth considering, except for 
her. Of course, the odds would be tragically long 
on the side of failure; but all he dared pray for 
was a fighting chance. As matters lay, it was 
wholly out of the question. 

Seemingly the only course was to lie low, always 
to be on the watch for the moment of opportunity. 
Some time, perhaps, their master’s vigilance would 
relax. Just one little instant of carelessness on his 
part might show the way. Perhaps the chance 
would come when the Intrepid put into the island 
to buy the season’s furs, if indeed life dwelt in his 
own body until that time. Ned didn’t forget that 
long, weary months of winter still lay between. 

He concluded that he would not take Lenore 
into his confidence at once. That would come later, 
— when he had something definite to propose. 
Lately she had not shown great confidence in him, 
scorning his ability to shelter her and serve her; and 
of course she would have only contempt for any 
such vague hope as this. He had nothing to offer 
now but the assurance of his own growing sense of 
power. As yet his hope lay wholly in the realiza¬ 
tion of the late growth and development of his own 
character. So far as material facts went, the barriers 
between her and her liberty were as insuperable as 
ever. He would not be able to encourage her: more 
likely, by her contempt, she would jeopardize his 
own belief in himself. Besides, for all his great 
love for her, he could not make himself believe that 


253 


The Isle of Retribution 


she was of fighting metal. He found, in this mo¬ 
ment of analysis of her soul, that he could not look 
to her for aid. She was his morning star, all that 
he could ask in woman, and he had chosen her for 


her worth and beauty, rather than for a helpmate, 
a fortress at his side. Yes, cooperation with 
her might injure, rather than increase, his chances 
for success. 

He dismissed in an instant the idea of telling 
Bess. His loyalty to Lenore demanded that, at 
least. She must not go where his own betrothed was 


excluded. If the thought came that Bess, by light 
of courage and fortitude, had already gone where 
in weakness and self-pity Lenore could not pos¬ 
sibly follow — the windy snow fields and the bitter 
crests of the rugged hills — he pushed it sternly 
from him. The whole thing was a matter of in¬ 
stinct with him, perhaps a wish to shield himself 
from invidious comparisons of the two girls. He 
would have liked to convince himself that Lenore 
could be his ally, but he was wholly unable to do 
so. Realizing that, he preferred to believe that 
Bess was likewise incompetent. But he knew he 
must not let his mind dwell to any great length 
upon the subject. He might be forced to change 
his mind. 

He must make a lone fight. He must follow a 
lone trail — like the old gray pack leader whose 
sluts cannot keep pace. 

Thereafter, day and night, Ned watched his 
chances. Never he climbed to the top of the ridge 
but that he searched, with straining eyes, for the 




254 


The Isle of Retribution 

glimpse of a dog-sledge on the horizon, or perhaps 
the faint line of a distant island. On the nights 
that he spent at the home cabin, he made an intense 
study of Doomsdorf s most minor habits, trying to 
uncover some little failing, some trifling careless¬ 
ness that might give him his opportunity. He 
made it a point to leave his axe in easy reaching 
distance; his clasp knife, in a holster of fur, was 
always open in his pocket, always ready to his hand. 
All day, down the weary length of his trap line, he 
considered ways and means. 

Simply because the wild continued to train him, 
he was ever stronger for this great, ultimate trial. 
Not only his intent was stronger, his courage 
greater, but his body also continued its marvelous 
development. His muscles were like those of a 
grizzly: great bunches of tendons, hard as stone, 
moving under his white skin. Every motion was 
lithe and strong; his energy was a never-failing 
fountain; his eyes were vivid and clear against the 
old-leather hue of his face. 

There was no longer an unpleasant discoloration 
in the whites of his eyes. They were a cold, hard, 
pale blue; and the little network of lines that had 
once shown faintly at his cheek bones had completely 
faded. His hands had killing strength; his neck 
was a brown pillar of muscle. Health was upon 
him, in its full glory, to the full meaning of the 
word. 

He found, to his great amazement, that his men¬ 
tal powers had similarly developed. His thought 
was more clear, and it flowed in deeper channels. 


255 


The Isle of Retribution 

It was no effort for him now to follow one line of 
thought to its conclusion. The tendency to veer 
off in the direction of least resistance had been en¬ 
tirely overcome. He could be of some aid, now, 
in the fur house of Godfrey Cornet. He felt he 
would like to match wits with his father’s compet¬ 
itors. 

He would need not only this great physical 
strength, but also his enhanced mental powers in 
the trial and stress that were to come. Doomsdorf’s 
tyranny could not be endured forever; they were 
being borne along toward a crisis as if on an ocean 
current. And for all his growth, Ned never made 
the fatal mistake of considering himself a physical 
match for Doomsdorf. Over and above the fact 
that the latter was armed with rifle and pistol, Ned 
was still a child in his hands. It was simply a case 
of intrinsic limitations. It was as if the wolf, chain- 
lightning savagery that he is, should try to lay low 
the venerable grizzly bear. 

Sooner or later the crisis would fall upon them, 
— a fit of savage anger on Doomsdorf’s part, or a 
wrong that could not be endured, even if death were 
the penalty for rebellion. Moreover, Ned could not 
escape the haunting fear that such a crisis was ac¬ 
tually imminent. Doomsdorf’s mood was an un¬ 
certain thing at best; and lately it had taken a turn 
for the worse. He was not getting the satisfaction 
that he had anticipated out of Ned’s slavery; the 
situation had lost its novelty, and he was open to 
any Satanic form of diversion that might occur to 
him. Ned had mastered his trap lines, had stood 


256 


The Isle of Retribution 

the gaff and was a better man on account of it; and 
it was time his master provided additional enter¬ 
tainment for him. In these dark, winter days he 
remembered the Siberian prison with particular 
vividness, and at such times the steely glitter was 
more pronounced in his eyes, and certain things 
that he had seen lingered ever in his mind. He 
kept remembering strange ghosts of men, toiling 
in the snow till they died, and souls that went out 
screaming under the lash; and such remembrances 
moved him with a dark, unspeakable lust. He 
thought he would like to bring these memory-pic¬ 
tures to life. Besides, his attitude toward Bess was 
ever more sinister. He followed her motions with 
a queer, searching, speculative gaze; and now and 
then he offered her little favors. 

If he could only be held in restraint a few months 
more. Ned knew perfectly that the longer the 
crisis could be averted, the better his chance for life 
and liberty. He would have more opportunity to 
make preparations, to lay plans. Besides, every 
day that he followed his trap line he was better 
trained — in character and mind and body — for 
the test to come. The work of bringing out Ned 
Cornet’s manhood had never ceased. 

Every day he had learned more of those savage 
natural forces that find clearest expression in the 
North. He knew the wind and the cold, snow- 
slide and blizzard, but also he knew hunger and 
fear and travail and pain. All these things taught 
him what they had to teach, and all of them served 
to shape him into the man he had grown to be. And 


The Isle of Retribution 257 

one still, clear afternoon the North sent home a 
new realization of its power. 

He was working that part of the line from his 
Twelve-Mile cabin over the ridge toward the Forks 
cabin, — his old rendezvous with Bess. He was 
somewhat late in crossing the range to-day. He 
had taken several of the larger fur-bearers and had 
been obliged to skin them laboriously, first thawing 
them out over a fire in the snow, so that midafter¬ 
noon found him just emerging from the thick copse 
where he had killed the white wolf. The blazed trail 
took him around the shoulder of the ridge, clear to 
the edge of a little, deeply seamed glacier such as 
crowns so many of the larger hills in the far North. 

Few were the wild creatures that traversed this 
icy desolation, so his trap line had been laid out 
around the glacier, following the blazed trail in the 
scrub timber. But to-day the long way round was 
particularly grievous to his spirit. More than a 
mile could be saved by leaving the timber and climb¬ 
ing across the ice, and only a few sets, none of which 
had ever proved especially productive, would be 
missed. In his first few weeks the danger of going 
astray had kept him close to his line, but he was not 
obliged to take it into consideration now. He knew 
his countrv end to end. 

Without an instant’s hesitation he turned from 
the trail straight over the snowy summit toward the 
cabin. The cut-off would save him the annoyance 
of making camp after dark. And since he had 
climbed it once before, he scarcely felt the need of 
extra caution. 



258 The Isle of Retribution 

The crossing, however, was not quite the same as 
on the previous occasion. Before the ice had been 
covered, completely across, with a heavy snowfall, 
no harder to walk on than the open barrens. He 
soon found now that the snow prevailed only to the 
summit of the glacier, and the descent beyond the 
summit had been swept clean by the winds. 

Below him stretched a half-mile of glare ice, 
ivory white like the fangs of some fabulous beast of 
prey. Here and there it was gashed with crevices, 
— those deep glacier chasms into which a stone falls 
in silence. For a moment Ned regarded it with 
considerable displeasure. 

He was not equipped for ice scaling. Perhaps it 
was best not to try to go on. But as he waited, the 
long way down and around seemed to grow in his 
imagination. It was that deadly hour of late after¬ 
noon when the founts of energy run low and the 
thought-mechanism is dulled by fatigue; — and 
some way, he felt his powers of resistance slipping 
away from him. He forget, for the moment, the 
Fear that is the very soul of wisdom. 

He decided to take a chance. He removed his 
snowshoes and ventured carefully out upon the ice. 

It was easier than it looked. His moccasins 
clung very well. Steadily gaining confidence, he 
walked at a faster pace. The slope was not much 
on this side, the glacier ending in an abrupt cliff 
many hundred feet in height, so he felt little need 
of especial precaution. It was, in fact, the easiest 
walking that he had had since his arrival upon the 
island, so he decided not to turn off clear until he 


259 


The Isle of Retribution 

reached the high ground just to one side of the ice 
cliff. He crawled down a series of shelves, picked 
his way about a jagged promontory, and fetched 
up at last at the edge of a dark crevice scarcely fifty 
feet from the edge of the snow. 

The crevice was not much over five feet wide at 
this point, and looking along, he saw that a hun¬ 
dred yards to his right it ended in a snowbank. But 
there was no need of following it down. He could 
leap it at a standing jump: with a running start 
he could bound ten feet beyond. 

He was tired, eager to get to camp, — and this 
was the zero hour. He drew back three paces, 
preparatory to making the leap. 

As he halted he was somewhat amazed at the in¬ 
credible depth of silence that enthralled this icy 
realm. It seemed to him, except for the beat of his 
own heart, the absolute zero of silence, — not a 
whimper of wind or the faintest rustle of whisking 
snow dust. All the wilderness world seemed to be 
straining — listening. The man leaped forward. 

At that instant the North gave him some sign of 
its power. His first running step was firm, but at 
the second his moccasin failed to hold, slipping 
straight back. He pitched forward on his hands 
and knees, grasping at the hard, slippery ice. 

But he had not realized his momentum. He ex¬ 
perienced a strange instant of hovering, of infinite 
suspense; and then the realization, like a flash of 
lightning, of complete and immutable disaster. 
There was no sense of fast motion. He slid rather 
slowly, with that sickening helplessness that so 




260 


The Isle of Retribution 

often characterizes the events of a tragic dream; 
and the wilderness seemed still to be waiting, watch¬ 
ing, in unutterable indifference. Then he pitched 
forward into the crevice. 

To Ned it seemed beyond the least, last possi¬ 
bility of hope that he should ever know another 
conscious second. The glacier crevices were all in¬ 
credibly deep, and he would fall as a stone falls, 
crushed at last on the lightless floor of the glacier 
so far below that no sound might rise to disturb 
this strange immensity of silence. It was always 
thus with wilderness deaths. There is no sign that 
the Red Gods ever see. All things remain as they 
were, — the eternal silence, the wild creatures ab¬ 
sorbed in their occupations; the trees never lifting 
their bowed heads from their burdens of snow. 

Ned did not dream that mortal eves would ever 

•/ 

rest upon his form again, vanishing without trace 
except for the axe that had fallen at the edge of the 
crevice and the imprint of his snowshoes on the 
trail behind. There was no reason in heaven or 
earth for doubting but that this ivory glacier would 
be his sepulcher forever. 

In that little instant the scope of his mind was 
incredibly vast. His thought was more clear and 
true than ever before in his life, and it was faster 
than the lightning in the sky. It reached back 
throughout his years; it encompassed in full his 
most subtle and intricate relations with life. There 
was no sense of one thought coming after another. 
The focus of his attention had been immeasurably 
extended; and all that he knew, and all that he was 


261 


The Isle of Retribution 

and had been, was before his eyes in one great, in¬ 
finite vista. 

He still had time in plenty to observe the im¬ 
mensity of the silence; the fact that his falling had 
not disturbed, to the least fraction of a degree, the 
vast imperturbability of the stretching snow fields 
about him. In that same instant, because of the 
seeming certainty of his end, he really escaped from 
fear. Fear in its true sense is a relation that living 
things have with the uncertainties of the future: a 
device of nature by which the species are warned 
of danger, but it can serve no purpose when judg¬ 
ment is signed and sealed. This was not danger 
but seeming certainty; and the mind was too busy 
with other subjects to give place to such a useless 
thing as fear. 



hope. Hope also is the handmaiden of uncertainty. 
Glancing back, there was no great sense of regret. 
Seemingly dispatched irrevocably out of the world, 
in that flash of an instant he was suddenly almost 
indifferent toward it. He remembered Lenore 
clearly, seeing her more vividly than he had ever 
seen her before, but she was like an old photograph 
found buried in a forgotten drawer, — recalling 
something that was of greatest moment once, but 
which no longer mattered. Perhaps, seemingly fac¬ 
ing certain death, he was as one of the dead, seeing 
everything in the world from an indifferent and 
detached viewpoint. 

All these thoughts swept him in a single fraction 
of an instant as he plunged into darkness. And 


262 


The Isle of Retribution 


all of them were unavailing. The uncertainty that 
shadows the lives of men held sway once more; and 
with it a ghastly and boundless terror. 

He was not to die at once. There was still hope 
of life. He fetched up, as if by a miracle, on an icy 
shelf ten feet below the mouth of the crevice, — 
with sheer walls rising on each side. 


XXIV 


Ned knew what fear was, well enough, as he lay 
in the darkened chasm, staring up at the white line 
of the crevice above him. The old love of life welled 
back, sweeping his spirit as in a flood, and with it 
all the hopes and fears of which life is made. He 
remembered Lenore, now. Her image was not just 
a lovely photograph of a past day, — a silvery 
daguerreotype of a happiness forgotten. He re¬ 
membered again his debt of service to her, his dear 
companionship for Bess, his dreams of escape from 
the island. Rallying his scattered faculties, he tried 
to analyze his desperate position. 

The shelf on which he had fallen was scarcely 
wider than his body, and only because it projected 
at an upward incline from the sheer wall had he 
come to rest upon it. It was perhaps fifty feet 
long, practically on a level all the way. The wall 
was sheer for ten feet above him; beyond the shelf 
was only the impenetrable darkness of the crevice, 
extending apparently into the bowels of the earth. 

Could he climb the wall? There was no other 
conceivable possibility of rescue. No one knew 
where he was; no one would come to look for him. 
Moreover, his escape must be immediate, — within 
a few hours at most. There was no waiting for 
Doomsdorf to come to look for him in the morning 
light. He was dressed in the warmest clothes, but 


264 The Isle of Retribution 

even these could not repel the frightful cold of the 
glaciers. 

Cool-headed, with perfect self-mastery, he 
shifted himself on the ledge to determine if he had 
been injured in the fall. He was drawn and shud¬ 
dering with pain, but that alone was not an index. 
Often the more serious injuries result in a tempo¬ 
rary paralysis that precludes pain. If any bones 
were broken he was beaten at the start. But his 
arms and legs moved in obedience to his will, and 
there seemed nothing to fear from this. 

Very cautiously, in imminent danger of pitching 
backward into the abyss, he climbed to his feet. He 
was a tall man, but his hands, reaching up, did not 
come within two feet of the ledge. And there was 
nothing whatever for his hands to cling to. 

If only there were irregularities in the ice. With 
a surge of hope he thought of his axe. 

This tool, however, had either fallen into the 
crevice or had dropped from his shoulder and lay 
on the ice above. But there remained his clasp 
knife. He drew it carefully from his pocket. 

Already he felt the icy chill of the glacier stealing 
through him, the cold fingers of death itself. He 
must lose no time in going to work. He began to 
cut, two feet above the ledge, a sharp-edged hole in 
the ice. 

Brittle ice is not easy to cut with a knife. It 
was a slow, painful process. He knew at once that 
he must work with care, — any irregular cut would 
not give him foothold. But Ned was working for 
his life; and his hand was facile as never before. 


265 


The Isle of Retribution 

He finished the cut at last, then started on an¬ 
other a foot above. He hewed out a foothold with 
great care. 

In spite of his warm gloves and the hard exercise 
of cutting, the numbing, biting frost was getting 
to his fingers. But he mustn’t let his hand grow 
stiff and awkward. He did not forget that the 
handholds, to which his fingers must cling, were 
yet to be made. They had to be finished with even 
greater skill than the footholds. Very wisely, he 
turned to them next. 

He made the first of them as high as he could 
reach. Then he put one in about a foot below. 
Three more footholds were put in at about twelve- 
inch intervals between. 

At that point he found it necessary to stop and 
spend a few of his precious moments in rest. He 
must not let fatigue dull him and take the cunning 
from his hand. But the first stage of the work was 
done; — deliverance looked already immeasurably 
nearer. If he could climb up, then cling on and 
cut a new hold! Placing the knife between his 
teeth, he put his moccasin into the first foothold and 
pulled himself up. 

It did not take long, however, to convince him 
that the remaining work bordered practically on 
the impossible. These holes in the ice were not like 
irregularities in stone. The fingers slipped over 
them: it was almost impossible to cling on with both 
hands, much less one. But clinging with all his 
might, he tried to free his right hand to procure his 
knife. 


266 


The Isle of Retribution 

e made it at last, and at a frightful cost of 
nervous energy succeeded in cutting some sort of a 
gash in the icy wall above his head. Standing so 
close he could not look up, it was impossible to do 
more than hack out a ragged hole. And because 
life lay this way and no other, he put the blade 
once more between his teeth, reached his right 
hand into the hole, and tried to pull himself up 
again. 

But disaster, bitter and complete, followed that 
attempt. His numbing hands failed to hold under 
the strain, and he slipped all the way back to his 
shelf. Something rang sharply against the ice 
wall, far below him. , 

He did not hear it again; but the truth went 
home to him in one despairing instant. Try as hard 
as he could, his jaws had released their hold upon 
the knife, and it had fallen into the depths of the 
crevice below. He was not in the least aware of 
the vicious wound its blade had cut in his shoulder, 
of the warm blood that was trickling down under 
his furs. He only knew, with that cold fatalism 
with which the woodsman regards life, that he had 
fought a good fight, —and he had lost. 

There was no use of trying any more. He had 
no other knife or axe, no tool that could hack a hole 
in the icy wall. What other things he carried about 
him — the furs on his back, his box of safety 
matches, and other minor implements of his trade 
— could not help him in the least. And soon it 
became increasingly difficult to think either upon 
the fight he had made or the fate that awaited him. 



The Isle of Retribution 267 

It was hard to remember anything but the growing 
cold. 

$ 

It hurt worst in his hands. So he took to rub¬ 
bing his hands together, hard as he could. He felt 
the blood surge back into them, and soon they were 
fairly warm in the great mittens of fur. 

Directly he settled back on his icy shelf and drew 
the pelts he had taken that day over his shoulders. 
There was but one hope left; and such as it was, it 
was curiously allied with despair. He hoped that 
he had heard true that when frost steals into the 
veins it comes with gentleness and ease. Perhaps 
he would simply go to sleep. 

It wouldn’t be a long time. In fact, a great 
drowsiness, not unpleasant but rather peaceful, 
was already settling upon him. The cold of the 
glacier was deadly. Not many moments remained 
of his time on earth. The death that dwells in the 
Arctic ice is mercifully swift. 

He had counted on hours, at least. He had even 
anticipated lingering far into the night. But this 
was only moments! The cleft above him was still 
distinctly gray. 

The ice was creeping again into his fingers. But 
he wouldn’t try to shake it out again. And now, 
little, stabbing blades of cold were beginning to 
pierce his heart. 

But likely he would go to sleep before they really 
began to trouble him. The northern night deep¬ 
ened around him. The wind sprang up and moved 
softly over the pale ice above him. The day was 
done. 


XXV 


Bess had made good time along her line that day* 
She had not forgotten that this was the day of her 
rendezvous with Ned, and by walking swiftly, es¬ 
chewing even short rests, carrying her larger 
trophies into the cabin to skin rather than halting 
and thawing them out over a fire, she arrived at the 
Forks hut at midafternoon. She began at once to 
make preparations for Ned’s coming. 

She built a roaring fire in the little, rusted stove, 
knowing well the blessing it would be to the tired 
trapper, coming in with his load of furs. She 
started supper so that the hot meal would be ready 
upon his arrival. Then she began to watch the hill¬ 
side for his coming. 

It always gave her a pleasant glow to see the 
little, moving spot of black at the edge of the tim¬ 
ber. Because of a vague depression that she had 
been unable all day to shake off, she anticipated it 
especially now. They always had such cheery 
times together, perched on opposite sides of the lit¬ 
tle stove. To Bess they redeemed the whole, weary 
week of toil. It was true that their relations were 
of companionship only; but this was clear enough. 
If, long ago, her dreams had gone out to him with 
deeper meaning, surely she had conquered them by 
now, —never to set her heart leaping at a friendly 
word, never to carry her, at the edge of slumber, 


< 


269 


The Isle of Retribution 

into a warm, beloved realm of exquisite fancy. 
Bess had undergone training too. These days in 
the snow had strengthened her and steeled her to 
face the truth; and even, in a measure, to reconcile 
herself to the truth. She had tried to make her heart 
content with what she had, and surely she was be¬ 
ginning to succeed. 

Ned was a little past his usual time to-night. 
Her depression deepened, and she couldn’t fight it 
off. This North was so remorseless and so cruel, 
laying so many pitfalls for the unsuspecting. It 
was strange what blind terror swept through her at 
just the thought of disaster befalling Ned. It 
made her doubt herself, her own mastery of her 
heart. She never considered the dangers that lay 
in her own path, only those in his. At the end of a 
miserable hour she straightened, scarcely able to 
believe her eyes. 

On the glare ice of the glacier, a mile straight up 
the ridge from the cabin, she saw the figure of a 
man. Far as it was, one glance told her it was not 
merely a creature of the wild, a bear disturbed in 
his winter sleep or a caribou standing facing her. 
It was Ned, of course, taking the perilous path 
over the ice, instead of keeping to the blazed trail 
of his trap line. On the slight downward slope to¬ 
ward her, clearly outlined against the white ice, she 
could see every step he took. 

He was walking boldly over the glassy surface. 
Didn’t he know its terrors, the danger of slipping 
on the icy shelves and falling to his death, the deep 
crevices shunned by the wild creatures? She 


270 


The Isle of Retribution 

watched every step with anxious gaze. When he 
was almost to safety she saw him stop, draw back 
a few paces, and then come forward at a leaping 
pace. 

What happened thereafter came too fast for her 
eyes to follow. One instant she saw his form dis¬ 
tinctly as he ran. The next, and the ice lay white 
and bare in the wan light, and Ned had disappeared 
as if by a magician’s magic. 

For one moment she gazed in growing horror. 
There was no ice promontory behind which he was 
hidden, nor did he reappear again. And peering 
closely, she made out a faint, dark line, like a pencil 
mark on the ice, just where Ned had disappeared. 

The truth went home in a flash. The dark line 
indicated a crevice, to the bottom of which no living 
thing may fall and live. Yet to such little wild 
creatures, red-eyed ermine and his fellows that 
might have been watching her from the snow in 
front, Bess gave no outward sign that she had seen 
or that she understood. 

She stood almost motionless at first. Her eyes 
were toneless, lightless holes in her white face; the 
face itself seemed utterly blank. She seemed to be 
drawing within herself, into an eerie dream world 
of her own, as if seeking shelter from some dire, 
unthinkable thing that lay without. She was 
hardly conscious, as far as the usual outward con¬ 
sciousness is concerned; unaware of herself, un¬ 
aware of the snow fields about her and the deepen¬ 
ing cold; unaware of the onward march of time. 
She seemed like a child, hovering between life and 


The Isle of Retribution 271 

death in the scourge of some dread, childhood 
malady. 

Slowly her lips drew in a smile; a smile ineffably 
sweet, tender as the watch of angels. It was as if 
the dying child had smiled to reassure its sobbing 
mother, to tell her that all was well, that she must 
dry her tears. “ It isn’t true,” she whispered, there 
in the stillness. “ It couldn’t be true — not to Ned. 
There is some way out — some mistake.” 

She turned into the cabin, bent, and added fresh 
fuel to the stove. Its heat scorched her face, and 
she put up her hand to shield it. The cabin should 
be warm, when she brought Ned home. She 
mustn’t let the cold creep in. She must not forget 
the cold , always watching for every little opening. 
Perhaps he would want food too: she glanced into 
the iron pot on the stove. Then, acting more by 
instinct than by conscious thought, she began to 
look about for such tools as she would need in the 
work to follow. 

There was a piece of rope, used once on a hand 
sled, hanging on the wall; but it was only about 
eight feet in length. Surely it was not long enough 
to aid her, yet it was all she had. Next, she re¬ 
moved a blanket from her cot and threw it over her 
shoulder. There might be need of this too, — 
further protection against the cold. 

Heretofore she had moved slowly, hardly aware 
of her own acts; but now she was beginning to mas¬ 
ter herself again. She mustn’t linger here. She 
must make her spirit waken to life, her muscles 
spring to action. Carrying her rope and her blan- 



272 The Isle of Retribution 

ket, she went out the door, closed it behind her, 
and started up toward the glacier. 

Only one thing was real in that long mile; and 
all things else were vague and shadowy as faces in 
a remembered dream. The one reality was the 
dark line, ever broader and more distinct, that lay 
across the ice where Ned had disappeared. The 
hope she had clung to all the way, that it was merely 
a shallow hollow in the ice and not one of the dread 
crevices that seem to go to the bowels of the earth, 
was evidently without the foundation of fact. 

Weary lifetimes passed away before ever she 
reached the first, steep cliff of the glacier. She had 
to follow along its base, on to the high ground to¬ 
ward which Ned had been heading, finally crossing 
back to the smooth table of the glacier itself. There 
was no chance for a mistake now. The gash in the 
ice was all too plain. 

At last she stood at the very edge of the yawning 
seam, staring down into the unutterable blackness 
below. Not even light could exist in the murky 
depths of the crevice, much less fragile human life. 
The day was not yet dead, twilight was still gray 
about her; but the crevice itself seemed full of ink 
clear to its mouth. And Ned’s axe, lying just 
at the edge of the chasm, showed where he had 
fallen. 

There was no use of seeking farther; of calling 
into the lightless depths. The story was all too 
plain. Very quietly, she lay down on the ice, try¬ 
ing to peer into the blackness below; but it was with 
no hope of bringing the fallen back to her again. 


The Isle of Retribution 273 

Ned was lost to her, as a falling star is lost to the 
star clusters in the sky. 

It never occurred to her that she would ever get 
upon her feet again. The game had been played 
and lost. There was no need of braving the snow 
again, of fighting her way down the trap line in the 
bitter dawns. The star she had followed had fallen; 
the flame of her altar had burned out. 

She knew now why she had ever fought the fight 
at all. It was not through any love of life, or any 
hope of deliverance in the end. It had all been for 
Ned. She had denied it before, but the truth was 
plain enough now. It was her love for Ned that 
had kept her shoulders straight under the killing 
labor, had sheltered her spirit from the curse of cold 
and storm, that had borne her aloft out of the power 
of this savage land to harm. She knew now why 
she had not given up long since. 

Was that the wav of woman’s heart, to sustain 
her through a thousand unutterable miseries only 
that she might be crushed in the end? Was life no 
more than this? She had been content to live on, 
to endure all, just to be near him and watch over 
him to the end; but there was no need of lingering 
now. The fire in the cabin could burn down, and 
the fire of her spirit could flicker out in the ever- 
deepening cold. 

She had tried to blind herself to the truth, yet 
always, in the secret places of her soul, she had 
known. It was not that she ever had hope of Ned’s 
love. Lenore would get that: Ned’s devotion to 
her had never faltered yet. But it was enough just 


274 The Isle of Retribution 

to be near, to work beside him, to care for him to the 
full limit of her mortal power. She knew now that 
all the tears she had shed had been for him: not for 
the lash of cold on her own body, but on his; not for 
her own miseries, but those that had so often 
brought Ned clear into the shadow of death. And 
now the final blow had fallen. She could lie still on 
the ice and let the wind cry by in triumph above her. 

She had loved every little moment with him, on 
the nights of their rendezvous. She had loved him 
even at first, before ever his manhood came upon 
him, but her love had been an infinite, an ineffable 
thing in these last few weeks of his greatness. She 
had watched his slow growth; every one of his vic¬ 
tories had been a victory to her; and she had loved 
every fresh manifestation of his new strength. But 
oh, she had loved his boyishness too. His queer, 
crooked smile, his brown hair curling over his brow, 
his laugh and his eyes, — all had moved her and 
glorified her beyond any power of hers to tell. 

She called his name into the chasm depths, and 
some measure of self-control returned to her when 
she heard the weird, rolling echo. Perhaps she 
shouldn’t give up yet. It wouldn’t be Ned’s way 
to yield to despair until the last, faint flame of hope 
had burned out. Perhaps the crevice was not of 
such vast depth as she had been taught to believe. 
Perhaps even now the man she loved was lying, 
shattered but not dead, only a few feet below her in 
the darkness. She had come swiftly; perhaps the 
deadly cold had not yet had time to claim him. She 
called again, loudly as she could. 



The Isle of Retribution 


275 


And that cry did not go unheard. Ned had 
given up but a few moments before Bess had come, 
and her full voice carried clearly into the strange, 
misty realm of semi-consciousness into which he had 
drifted. And this manhood that had lately grown 
upon him would not let him shut his ears to this sob¬ 
bing appeal. His own voice, sounding weird and 
hollow as the voice of the dead in that immeasurable 
abyss, came back in answer. 

“ Here I am, Bess,” he said. “ You’ll have to 
work quick.” 


XXVI 


It was bitter hard for Ned to fight his way back 
through death’s twilight. The cold had hold of 
him, its triumph was near, and it would not let him 
go without a savage battle that seemed to wrack the 
man in twain. So far as his own wishes went, he 
only wanted to drift on, farther and farther into the 
twilight ocean, and never return to the cursed island 
again. But Bess was calling him, and he couldn’t 
deny her. Perhaps in a distant cabin Lenore called 
him too. 

Indeed, the call upon him was more urgent than 
ever before. Before, his thought had always been 
for Lenore, but Bess too was a factor now. In that 
utter darkness Ned saw more clearly than ever be¬ 
fore in his life, and while his eyes searched only for 
Lenore, he kept seeing Bess too. Bess with her 
never-failing smile of encouragement, her soft 
beauty that had held him, in spite of himself, on 
their nights at Forks cabin. Her need of him was 
real, threatened by Doomsdorf as she was, and he 
mustn’t leave her sobbing so forlornly on the ice 
above. Lenore was first, of course, — his duty to 
her reason enough for making a mighty fight. But 
Bess’s pleading moved him deeply. 

He summoned every ounce of courage and deter¬ 
mination that he had and tried to shake the frost 
from his brain. “ You’ll have to work quick,” he 


277 


The Isle of Retribution 

warned again. His voice was stronger now, but 
softened with a tenderness beyond her most reckless 
dreams. “ Don’t be too hopeful — I haven’t much 
left in me. What can you do? ” 

The girl who answered him was in no way the lost 
and hopeless mortal that had lain sobbing on the ice. 
Her scattered, weakened faculties had swept back 
to her in all their strength, at the first sound of his 
voice. He was alive , and it is the code of the North, 
learned in these dreadful months, that so long as a 
spark still glows the battle must not be given over. 
There was something to fight for now. The fight¬ 
ing side of her that Ned had seen so often swept 
swiftly into dominance. At once she was a cold 
blade, true and sure; brain and body in perfect dis¬ 
cipline. 

“How far are you?” she asked. “I can’t 
see-” 

“About ten feet — but I can’t get up without 
help.” 

“ Can you stand up? ” 

“ Yes.” Forcing himself to the last ounce of his 
nerve and courage, he drew himself erect. Reach¬ 
ing upward, his hands were less than a yard from 
the top of the crevice. 

Bess did not make the mistake of trying to reach 
down to him. She conquered the impulse at once, 
realizing that any weight at all, unsupported as she 
was, would draw her into the ravine. Even the 
rope would be of no use until she had something 

firm to which to attach it. 

“I’ve dug holes most of the way up,” he 




278 The Isle of Retribution 

told her. “ I might try to climb ’em, with a little 
help-” 

“ Are you at the bottom of the crevice? ” 

“ The bottom is hundreds of feet below me. I’m 
on a ledge about three feet wide.” 

“ Then stand still till I can really help you. I 
can’t pull you now without being pulled in myself, 
and if you’d fall back you’d probably roll off the 
ledge. The ice is like glass. Ned, are you good for 
ten minutes more-” 

“ I don’t know-” 

“ It’s the only chance.” Again her tone was 
pleading. “ Keep the blood moving for ten min¬ 
utes more, Ned. Oh, tell me you’ll try-” 

Deep in the gloom she thought she heard him 
laugh — only a few, little syllables, wan and 
strange in the silence — and it was all the answer 
she needed. He would fight on for ten minutes 
more. He would struggle against the cold until 
she could rescue him. 

“ Here’s a blanket,” she told him swiftly. “ Put 
it around vou, if you can, without danger of rolling 
off.” 

She dropped him the great covering she had 
brought; then in a single, deerlike motion, she 
leaped the narrow crevice. On the opposite side 
she procured Ned’s axe; then she turned, and half 
running, half gliding on the ice, sped toward the 
nearest timber, — a number of stunted spruce 
two hundred yards distant at the far edge of the 
glacier. 

Bess had need of her woodsman’s knowledge 







279 


The Isle of Retribution 

now. Never before had her blows been so true, so 
telling on the tough wood. Before, in the fuel cut¬ 
ting of months before, she had wielded the axe in 
fear of the lash, but to-day she worked for Ned’s 
life, for the one dream that mattered yet. Almost 
at once she had done her work and was started back 
with a tough pole, eight feet long and four inches in 
diameter, balanced on her sturdy shoulder. 

Ned was still strong enough to answer her call 
when she returned, and the dim light still permitted 
him to see her lay the pole she had cut as a bridge 
across the crevice, cutting notches in the ice to hold 
it firm. Swiftly she tied one end of her rope to the 
pole and dropped the other to him. 

“ Can you climb up?” she asked him. Every¬ 
thing had centered down to this — whether he still 
had strength to climb the rope. 

“ Just watch me,” was the answer. 

From that instant, she knew that she had won. 
The spirit behind his words would never falter, with 
victory so near. He dug his moccasins into the 
holes he had hacked in the ice, meanwhile working 
upward, hand over hand. To fall meant to die, — 
but Ned didn’t fall. 

It was a hard fight, weakened as he was, but soon 
the girl’s reaching hands caught his sleeve, then his 
coat; finally they were fastened firmly, lifting with 
all the girl’s strength, under the great arms. His 
hand seized the pole, and he gave a great upward 
lunge. And then he was lying on the ice beside 
her, fighting for breath, not daring to believe that 
he was safe. 




280 


The Isle of Retribution 

But the usual cool, half-mirthful remark that, in 
many little crises, Ned had learned to expect from 
Bess was not forthcoming to-night. Nor were the 
sounds in the twilight merely those of heavy breath¬ 
ing. The strain was over, and Bess had given way 
to the urge of her heart at last. Her tears flowed 
unchecked, whether of sorrow or happiness even she 
did not know. 

The man crawled toward her, moved by an urge 
beyond him, and for a single moment his strong 
arms pressed her close. “ Don’t cry, little pal,” he 
told her. He smiled, a strangely boyish, happy 
smile, into her eyes. Very softly, reverently he 
kissed her wet eyelids, then stilled her trembling lips 
with his own. He smiled again, a great good-humor 
taking hold of him. “ You’re too big a girl to 
cry! ” 

It was he, to-night, who had to relieve with humor 
a situation that would have soon been out of bounds. 
Yet all at once he saw that the little sentence had 
meaning far beyond what he had intended. She 
had shown bigness to-night, — a greatness of spirit 
and strength that left him wondering and reverent. 
The battle she had fought to save his life was no less 
than his own waged with the white wolf, weeks be¬ 
fore. 

Here was another who had stood the gaff! She 
too knew what it was to take the fighting chance. 
Presently he knew, by light of this adventure on the 
ice, that Bess was more than mere companion in toil 
and hardship, some one to shelter and protect. She 
was a comrade-at-arms, — such a fortress of 


The Isle of Retribution 


281 


strength as the best of women have always been to 
the men they loved. 

He did not know whether or not she loved him. 
It didn’t affect the point that, in a crisis, she had 
shown the temper of her steel! He did not stand 
alone henceforth. In the struggle for freedom 
that was to come here was an ally on whom, to the 
very gates of death, he could implicitly rely. 


XXVII 


When food and warmth had brought complete 
recovery, Ned took up with Bess the problem of 
deliverance from the island. He found that for 
weeks she had been thinking along the same line, 
and like him, she had as yet failed to hit upon any 
plan that offered the least chance for success. The 
subject held them late into the night. 

There was no need of a formal pact between 
them. Each of them realized that if ever the 
matter came to the crisis, the other could be relied 
upon to the last ditch. They stood together on 
that. Whatever the one attempted, the other would 
carry through. And because of their mutual trust, 
both felt more certain than ever of their ultimate 
triumph. 

They took different trails in the dawn, following 
the long circle of their trap lines. All the way they 
pondered on this same problem, conceiving a plan 
only to reject it because of some unsurmountable 
obstacle to its success; dwelling upon the project 
every hour and dreaming about it at night. But 
Ned was far as ever from a conclusion when, three 
days later, he followed the beach on the way to the 
home cabin. 

He had watched with deadened interest the 
drama of the wild things about him these last days; 
but when he was less than a mile from home he had 


283 


The Isle of Retribution 

cause to remember it again. To his great amaze¬ 
ment he found at the edge of the ice the fresh track 
of one of the large island bears. 

There was nothing to tell for sure what had awak¬ 
ened the great creature prematurely from its winter 
sleep. The expected date of awakening was still 
many weeks off. But the grizzly is notoriously ir¬ 
regular in his habits; and experienced naturalists 
have long since ceased to be surprised at whatever 
he may do. Ned reasoned at once that the present 
mild weather had merely beguiled the old veteran 
from, his lair (the size of the track indicated a patri¬ 
arch among the bears) and he was simply enjoying 
the late winter sunlight until a cold spell should 
drive him in again. 

The sight of the great imprint was a welcome one 
to Ned, not alone because the wakening forecasted, 
perhaps, an early spring, but because he was in im¬ 
mediate need of bear fur. His own coat was worn; 
besides, he was planning a suit of cold-proof gar¬ 
ments for Lenore, to be used perhaps in their final 
flight across the ice. And he saw at once that con¬ 
ditions were favorable for trapping the great crea¬ 
ture. 

Scarcely a quarter of a mile ahead, in a little pass 
that led through the shore crags down to the beach, 
Doomsdorf had left one of his most powerful bear 
traps. Ned had seen it many times as he had clam¬ 
bered through on a short cut to the cabin. Because 
it lay in a natural runway for game — one of the 
few spots where the shore crags could be easily sur¬ 
mounted — it was at least possible that the huge 




284 The Isle of Retribution 

bear might fall into it, on his return to his lair in the 
hills. 

Ned hurried on, and in a few moments had dug 
out the great trap from its Qpvering of snow. For 
a moment he actually doubted his power to set it. 
It was of obsolete type, mighty-springed, and its 
jaws were of a width forbidden by all laws of trap¬ 
ping in civilized lands, yet Ned did not doubt its 
efficiency. Its mighty irons had rusted; but not 
even a bear’s incalculable might could shatter them. 

This was not to be a bait set, so his success de¬ 
pended upon the skill with which he concealed the 
trap. First he carefully refilled the excavation he 
had made in digging out the trap; then he dug a 
shallow hole in the snow in the narrowest part of 
the pass. Here he set the trap, utilizing all the 
power of his mighty muscles, and spread a light cov¬ 
ering of snow above. 

It was a delicate piece of work. Ned had no 
wish for the cruel jaws to snap shut as he was work¬ 
ing above them. But his heart was in the venture, 
for all his hatred of the cruelty of the device; and 
he covered up his tracks with veteran’s skill. Then 
he quietly withdrew, retracing his steps and follow¬ 
ing the shore line toward the home cabin. 

Surely the mighty strength that had set the pow¬ 
erful spring and the skill that covered up all traces 
of his work could succeed at last in freeing him from 
slaverv. 

Bess had reached the shelter first, and she was 
particularly relieved to see Ned’s tall form swing- 


285 


The Isle of Retribution 

ing toward her along the shore. Doomsdorf was in 
a particularly ominous mood to-night. The curi¬ 
ous glitter in his magnetic eyes was more pro¬ 
nounced than she had ever seen it, — catlike in the 
shadows, steely in the lantern light; and his cruel 
savagery was just at the surface, ready to be 
wakened. AVorst of all, the gaze he bent toward 
her was especially eager to-night, horrible to her as 
the cold touch of a reptile. 

Every time she glanced up she found him regard¬ 
ing her, and he followed her with his eyes when she 
moved. Yet she dared not seek shelter in the new 
cabin, for the simple reason that she was afraid 
Doomsdorf would follow her there. Until Ned 
came, her defense was solely the presence of Lenore 
and the squaw. 

There was no particular warmth in her meeting 
with Ned. Doomsdorf’s eyes were still upon her, 
and she was careful to keep any hint of the new 
understanding out of her face and eyes. Ned’s 
weather-beaten countenance was as expressionless 
as Sindy’s own. 

He refused to be depressed, at once, by the air of 
suspense and impending disaster that hung over the 
cabin. Thus was the day of his home-coming — 
looked forward to throughout the bitter days of his 
trap line — and was not Lenore waiting, beautiful 
in the lantern light, for him to speak to her? Yet 
the old exultation was somehow missing to-night. 
His thoughts kept turning back to the pact he had 
made with Bess — to their dream of deliverance. 
What Avas more curious, Lenore’s lack of warmth 



286 The Isle of Retribution 

that had come to be a matter of course in their 
weekly meetings almost failed to hurt. His mind 
was so busy with the problem of their freedom that 
he escaped the usual despondency that had crept 
upon him so many times before. 

It was a peculiar paradox that while this was his 
day of days, the one day in five that seemed to jus¬ 
tify his continued life, it was always the most hope¬ 
less and miserable, simply because of Lenore’s atti¬ 
tude toward him. It wasn’t entirely her failure to 
respond to his own ardor. The inevitable disap¬ 
pointment lay as much in his own attitude toward 
her. It was as much the things she did as those she 
failed to do that depressed him; the questions she 
asked, her patronage of Bess, her self-pitying com¬ 
plaints. Always he experienced a sense of some 
great omission, — perhaps only his failure to feel 
the old delight and exultation that the mere fact of 
her presence used to impart to him. He found it 
increasingly hard to give full attention to her; to let 
his eyes dwell always on her beauty and his ears give 
heed to her wrongs. 

She found him preoccupied, and as a result in¬ 
creased her complaints. But they left him cold to¬ 
night. Her lot was happiness itself compared to 
that of Bess, and yet Bess’s spirit of good sports¬ 
manship and courage was entirely absent in her. 
But he must not keep comparing her with Bess. 
Destruction lay that way! He must continue to 
adore her for her beauty, the charm that used to 
hold him entranced. 

She was all he had asked for in his old life. If 



The Isle of Retribution 


287 


they ever gained freedom, he would, in all probabil- 
ity, find in her all that he could desire in the future. 
They could take up their old love anew, and doubt¬ 
less she would give him all the happiness he had a 
right to expect — more than he deserved. Likely 
enough, if the test ever came, she would show that 
her metal too was the finest, tempered steel! At 
least he could continue to believe in her until he had 
cause to lose faith. 

And the test was not far-distant now. He was 
not blind to the gathering storm; at any moment 
there might ensue a crisis that would embroil all 
three of them in a struggle to the death. Not one 
of them could escape, Lenore no more than himself 
or Bess. She was one of the triumvirate, — and 
surely she would stand with them to the last. 

If the crisis could only be postponed until they 
had made full preparations for it! Yet in one 
glance, in which he traced down Doomsdorf’s fiery 
gaze and found it centered upon Bess, he knew that 
any instant might bring the storm! 

He felt his own anger rising. A dark fury, 
scarcely controllable, swept over him at the insult of 
that creeping, serpent gaze upon Bess’s beauty. 
But he mustn’t give way to it yet. He must hold 
himself for the last, dread instant of need. 

The four of them gathered about the little, rough 
table, and again the squaw served them, from the 
shadows. It was a strange picture, there in the 
lantern light, — the imperturbable face of the 
squaw, always half in shadow; the lurid wild-beast 
eyes of Doomsdorf gleaming under his shaggy 




288 The Isle of Retribution 

brows; Lenore’s beauty a thing to hold the eyes; 
and Bess horrified and fearful at what the next mo¬ 
ment might bring. Hardly a word was exchanged 
from the meal’s beginning to its end. Bess tried to 
talk, so as to divert Doomsdorf’s sinister thoughts, 
but the words would not come to her lips. The 
man seemed eager to finish the meal. 

As soon as they had moved from the table toward 
the little stove, and the squaw had begun the work 
of clearing away the dishes, Doomsdorf halted at 
Bess’s side. For a moment he gazed down at her, a 
great hand resting on her chair. 

‘‘You’re a pretty little hell-cat,” he told her, in 
curiously muffled tones. “ What makes you such a 
fighter? ” 

She tried to meet his eyes. “ I have to be, in this 
climate,” she answered. “ Where would you get 
your furs-” 

He uttered one great hoarse syllable, as if in the 
beginning of laughter. “ That’s not what I mean, 
and you know it. You’d sooner walk ten miles 
through the snow than give an inch, wouldn’t you? ” 
His hand reached, closing gently upon her arm, and 
a shiver of repulsion passed over her. “ That’s a 
fine little muscle — but you don’t want to work it 
off. Why don’t you show a little friendship? ” 

The girl looked with difficulty into his great, 
drawn face. Ned stiffened, wondering if the mo¬ 
ment of crisis were at hand at last. Lenore watched 
appalled, but the native went on about her tasks as 
if she hadn’t heard. 

“ You can’t expect —much friendship — from a 




289 


The Isle of Retribution 

prisoner,” Bess told him brokenly. Her face, so 
white in the yellow lantern light, her trembling lips, 
most of all the appeal for mercy in her child’s eyes 
— raised to this beast compared with whom even 
the North was merciful — wakened surging, des¬ 
perate anger in Ned. The room turned red before 
his eyes, his muscles quivered, and he was rapidly 
reaching that point wherein his self-control, on 
which life itself depended, was jeopardized. Yet 
he must hold himself with an iron hand. He must 
wait to the last instant of need. Everything de¬ 
pended on that, in avoiding the crisis until he had 
made some measure of preparation. 

The loss of his long-bladed skinning knife in¬ 
creased the odds against him. He had put consid¬ 
erable reliance in its hair-splitting blade; and since 
he had perfected the sheath of caribou leather 
whereby he could keep it open in his pocket, he had 
hoped that it might be the means of freedom. In 
the three days since its loss he had been obliged to 
carry one of the butcher knives from the supplies at 
Forks cabin, — a sharp enough implement, but 
without the dagger point that would be so deadly in 
close work. However, he moved his arm so that he 
could reach the hilt of the knife in one motion. 

But with the uncanny watchfulness of a cat 
Doomsdorf saw the movement. For one breath 
Ned’s life was suspended by a hair: Doomsdorf’s 
first impulse was to seize his pistol and bore the 
younger man through and through with lead. It 
was a mere madman’s whim that he refrained: he 
had a more entertaining fate in store for Ned when 


290 The Isle of Retribution 

affairs finally reached a crisis. He leered down in 
contempt. 

“ Your little friend seems to be getting nervous,” 
he remarked easily to Bess. “So not to disturb 
him further, let’s you and I go to the new cabin. 
I’ve taken some fine pelts lately — I want you to 
see them. You need a new coat.” 

He seemed to be aware of the gathering sus¬ 
pense, and it thrilled his diseased nerves with exul¬ 
tation. But there was, from his listeners, but one 
significant response at first to the evil suggestion 
that he made with such iniquitous fires in his wild 
eyes and such a strange, suppressed tone in his 
voice. Bess’s expression did not change. It had 
already revealed the uttermost depths of dread. 
Ned still held himself, cold, now, as a serpent, wait¬ 
ing for his chance. But the squaw paused a single 
instant in her work. For one breath they failed to 
hear the clatter of her pans. But seemingly indif¬ 
ferent, she immediately went back to her toil. 

Bess shook her head in desperate appeal. “ Wait 
till morning,” she pleaded. “ I’m tired now-” 

Ned saw by the gathering fury of their master’s 
face that her refusal would only bring on the crisis, 
so he leaped swiftly into the breach. “ Sure, Bess, 
let’s go to look at them,” he said. “ I’m anxious to 
see ’em too-” 

Doomsdorf whirled to him, and his gaze was as a 
trial of fire to Ned. Yet the latter did not flinch. 
For a long second they regarded each other in im¬ 
placable hatred, and then Doomsdorf’s sudden start 
told that he had been visited by inspiration. His 




291 


The Isle of Retribution 

leering look of contempt was almost a smile. 
“ Sure, come along,” he said. “ I’ve got something 
to say to you too. To spare Lenore’s feelings — 
we’ll go to the other cabin.’’ 

Ned was not in the least deceived by this refer¬ 
ence to Lenore. Doomsdorf had further cause, 
other than regard for Lenore’s sensibilities, for con¬ 
tinuing their conversation in the other cabin. What 
it was Ned did not know, and he dared not think. 
And he had a vague impression that while he and 
Doomsdorf had waged their battle of eyes, Bess had 
mysteriously moved from her position. He had 
left her just at Doomsdorf’s right; when he saw her 
again she was fully ten feet distant, within a few 
feet of the cupboards where the squaw kept many 
of the food supplies, and now was busy with her 
parka of caribou skin. 

She led the way out into the clear, icy night. It 
was one of those still, clear, late winter evenings, 
not so cold as it had been, when the frozen, snow- 
swept world gave no image of reality to the senses. 
The snow wastes and the velvet depths of the sky 
were lurid, flashing with a thousand ever-changing 
hues from the giant kaleidoscope of the Northern 
Lights. Moved and held by this wonder that never 
grows old to the northern man, Doomsdorf halted 
them just without the cabin door. 

As they watched, the procession of colors sud¬ 
denly ceased, leaving world and sky an incredible 
monochrome in red. It was wanly red at first, but 
the warm hue slowly deepened until one could im¬ 
agine that the spirits of all the dead, aroused for 


292 


The Isle of Retribution 

some cosmic holiday, were lighting flares of red fire. 
It was a strange sight even for these latitudes; but 
this lambent mystery is ever beyond the ken of man. 
The name that Doomsdorf had given his island had 
never seemed so fitting as now. In the carmine 
glow the bearded face of the master of the isle was 
suddenly the red-hued visage of Satan. 

But the light died away at last, and the falling 
darkness called them back to themselves. The lust 
that fired Doomsdorf’s blood, the fear like the 
Arctic cold in the veins of Ned and Bess was all 
worldly enough. For a moment he studied their 
pale, tense faces. 

“ There’s no need of going farther,” he said in his 
deep, rumbling voice. “ There was no need of even 
coming here. You seem to be forgetting, you two, 
where you are—all the things I told you at first.” 

He paused, and his voice had dropped, and the 
tone was strange and even, dreadful to hear, when 
he spoke again. “ I’ve evidently been too easy with 
you,” he went on. “ I’ll see that I correct that 
fault in the future. You, Ned, made a serious mis¬ 
take when you interfered in this matter to-night. 
I’ll see if I can’t teach you to keep your place. 
And Bess — long ago I told you that your body 
and your soul were mine — to do with what I liked. 
You seemed to have forgotten — but I intend that 
you will call it to mind — again.” 

But Ned still faced him when he paused, eyes 
steadfast, his face an iron gray in the wan light. 
His training had been hard and true, and he still 
found strength to stand erect. 




293 


The Isle of Retribution 

“ I want to tell you this — in reply,” he answered 
in the clear, firm voice of one who has mastered 
fear. “We know well enough what you can do to 
us. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to yield 
to you — to every one of your evil wishes. Life 
isn’t so pleasant to either of us that we’ll submit 
to everything in order to live. No matter what 
you do to me — I know what I’ll do to you if 
you try to carry out your wicked designs by 
force.” 

Doomsdorf eyed him calmly, but the smile of con¬ 
tempt was wholly gone from his lips. “ You’ll 
show fight? ” he asked. 

“ With every ounce I’ve got! You may master 
me — with every advantage of weapons and phys¬ 
ical strength — but you’ll have to kill me first. 
Bess will kill herself before she’ll yield to you. You 
won’t be better off — you’ll simply have no one to 
do your trapping for you. It isn’t worth it, 
Doomsdorf.” 

He eyed them a moment, coolly and casually. 
“ When I want anything, Ned, I want it bad 
enough to pay all I’ve got for it,” he said in a re¬ 
markably even tone. “ Don’t presume that I value 
your lives so much that I’ll turn one step from my 
course. Besides, Ned — jmu won’t be here! ” 

Ned’s eyes widened, as he tried to read his mean¬ 
ing. Doomsdorf laughed softly in the silence. 
“ You won’t be here! ” he repeated. “ You fool — 
do you think I’d let you get in my way? It will 
rest as it is to-night. To-morrow morning you 
start out to tend your traps—and you will tend 



294 


The Isle of Retribution 


Bess’s lines as well as your own. She will stay here 
— with me — from now on.” 

Ned felt his muscles hardening to steel. “ I 

won’t leave her to you-” 

“You won’t? Don’t make any mistake on that 
point. If you are not on your way by sun-up, you 
get a hundred — from the knout . You won’t be 
able to leave for some time after that — but neither 
will you be able to interfere with what doesn’t con¬ 
cern you. I’ll give you a few in the dawn — just 
as a sample to show what they’re like. Nor am I 
afraid of Bess killing herself. It’s cold and dark 
here, but it’s colder and darker — There. She’ll 
stand a lot before she’ll do that.” 

“ That’s definite? ” Ned asked. 

“ The truest words I ever spoke. I’ve never 
gone back on a promise yet.” 

“ And believe me, I won’t go back on mine. If 

that’s all you have to say-” 

“ That’s quite all. Think it over — you’ll find 
it isn’t so bad. And now — good night.” 

He bowed to them, in mock politeness. Then 
he turned back into his cabin. 

For a moment his two prisoners stood inert, ut¬ 
terly motionless in the wan light. Ned started to 
turn to her, still held by his own dark thoughts, 
but at the first glance of her white, set face he 
whirled in the most breathless amazement. It was 
in no way the stricken, terrified countenance that he 
had seen a few moments before. The lips were 
firm, the eyes deep and strange; even in the half- 
light he could see her look of inexorable purpose. 








295 


The Isle of Retribution 

Some great resolve had come to her, — some 
sweeping emotion that might even be akin to hope. 
Was she planning suicide? Was that the meaning 
of this new look of iron resolution in her face? He 
could conceive of no other explanation; in self-in¬ 
flicted death alone lay deliverance from Dooms- 
dorf’s lust. He dared not hope for any happier 
' freedom. 

He reached groping hands to hers. “ You don’t 
mean ” —he gasped, hardly able to make his lips 
move in speech — “ you don’t intend-? ” 

“ To kill myself? Not yet, by a long way.” The 
girl’s hand slipped cautiously out from the pocket 
of her jacket, showing him what seemed to be a 
small, square box of tin. But the light was too dim 
for him to make out the words on the paper label. 
“ I got this from the shelf — just as we left the 
cabin.” 

The hopeful tones in her voice was the happiest 
sound Ned had heard since he had come to the 
island. 

“ What is it? ” he whispered. 

“Nothing very much — but yet — a chance for 
freedom. Come into the cabin where we can scratch 
a match.” 

They moved into the newer hut of logs, and there 
Bess showed him the humble article in which lay 
her hopes. It was merely a tin of fine snuff from 
among Doomsdorf’s personal supplies. 




XXVIII 


Talking in an undertone, not to be heard 
through the log walls, Bess and Ned made their 
hasty plans for deliverance. They gave no sign of 
the excitement under which they worked. Seem¬ 
ingly they were unshaken by the fact that life or 
death was the issue of the next hour, — the real¬ 
ization that the absolute crisis was upon them at 
last. Bess did not recall, in word or look, the try¬ 
ing experience just passed through. Like Ned she 
was wholly self-disciplined, her mind moving cool 
and sure. Never had their wilderness training 
stood them in better stead. 

Here, in the cabin they occupied, the assault 
must be made. The reason was simply that their 
plan was defeated at the outset if they attempted 
to master Doomsdorf in the squaw’s presence. For 
all her seeming impassiveness, she would be like a 
panther in her lord’s defense: Bess had had full 
evidence of that fact the first day in the cabin. And 
it was easier to decoy Doomsdorf here than to at¬ 
tempt to entice the squaw away from her own house. 

The fact that their two enemies must be handled 
singly required the united efforts of not only Ned 
and Bess, but Lenore. Two must wait here, as in 
ambush, and the third must make some pretext to 
entice Doomsdorf from his cabin. This, the easiest 
part of the work, could fall to Lenore. Both Ned 


The Isle of Retribution 297 

and Bess realized that in their own hands must lie 
the success or failure of the actual assault. 

The plan, on perfection, was really very simple. 
As soon as Lenore came, she would be sent back to 
the cabin to bring Doomsdorf. She would need no 
further excuse than that Bess had asked to see him: 
Ned’s knowledge of the brute’s psychology told 
him that. The scene just past would be fresh in 
his mind, and it would be wholly characteristic of 
his measureless arrogance that he would at once as¬ 
sume that Bess had come to terms. He would read 
in the request a vindication of his own philosophy, 
the triumph of his own ruthless methods; and it 
would be balm to his tainted soul to come and hear 
her beg forgiveness. Likely he would anticipate 
complete surrender. 

Neither of the two conspirators could do this part 
of the work so well as Lenore. For Bess to sum¬ 
mon Doomsdorf herself was of course out of the 
question; he might easily demand to hear her sur¬ 
render on the spot. If Ned went, inviting Dooms¬ 
dorf to a secret conference with Bess, he would in¬ 
vite suspicion if he reentered the newer cabin with 
him; his obvious course would be to remain outside 
and leave the two together. Besides, Lenore was 
the natural emissary: a woman herself and thus 
more likely chosen for woman’s delicate missions, 
she was also closer to Doomsdorf than any other of 
the three, the one most likely to act as a confidential 
agent. Doomsdorf would certainly comply with 
Bess’s request to meet him in her cabin. The fact 
of the squaw’s presence would be sufficient expla- 


298 


The Isle of Retribution 

nation to him why she would not care to confer 
with him in his own. 

Ned would be waiting in the newer cabin when 
Lenore and Doomsdorf returned. He would im¬ 
mediately excuse himself and pass out the door, at 
the same instant that Bess extended a chair for 
Doomsdorf. And the instant that he was seated 
Bess would dash a handful of the blinding snuff 
into his eyes. 

Ned’s axe leaned just without the cabin door. 
Doomsdorf would notice it as he went in: other¬ 
wise his suspicions might be aroused. And in his 
first instant of agony and blindness, Ned would 
seize the weapon, dash back through the door, and 
make the assault. 

The plan was more than a mere fighting chance. 
It would take Doomsdorf off his guard. Ned had 
full trust in Bess’s ability to do her part of the 
work; as to his own, he would strike the life from 
their brute master with less compassion than he 
would slay a wolf. He could find no break, no 
weak link in the project. 

They had scarcely perfected the plan before Le¬ 
nore appeared, on the way to her cot. Just an in¬ 
stant she halted, her face and golden head a glory 
in the soft light, as she regarded their glittering 
eyes. 

Their eyes alone, luridly bright, told the story. 
Perhaps Ned was slightly pale; nothing that could 
not be explained by the inroads made upon him in 
the critical hour just passed. Perhaps Bess was 
faintly flushed at the cheek bones. But those cold, 


299 


The Isle of Retribution 

shining eyes held her and appalled her. “ What is 
it? ” she demanded. 

Ned moved toward her, reaching for her hands. 
For a breath he gazed into her lovely face. “ Bess 
wants you to go — and tell Doomsdorf — to come 
here,” he told her. His voice was wholly steady, 
every word clearly enunciated; if anything, he 
spoke somewhat more softly and evenly than usual. 
“ Just tell him that she wants to see him.” 

She took her eyes from his, glancing about with 
unmistakable apprehension. 

“ Why? ” she demanded. “ He doesn’t like to be 
disturbed.” 

“ He mil be disturbed, before we’re done,” Ned 
told her grimly. “ Just say that — that she wants 
to see him. He’ll come — he’ll merely think it has 
to do with some business we’ve just been talking 
over. Go at once, Lenore — before he goes to bed. 
That’s your part—to bring him here. You can 
leave him at the door if you like — you can even 

stav at the other cabin while he comes.” 

*/ 

Her searching eyes suddenly turned in fascinated 
horror to Bess. Standing near the open door, so 
that the room might not be filled with the dust of 
the snuff and thus convey a warning to Doomsdorf, 
she was emptying the contents of the snuff-box into 
her handkerchief. Her eyes gleamed under her 
brows, and her hands were wholly steady. Lenore 
shivered a little, her hands pressing Ned’s. 

“ What does it mean-? ” 

“Liberty! That’s what it means, if the plan 
goes through.” For the first time Ned’s voice re- 



300 


The Isle of Retribution 


vealed suppressed emotion. Liberty! He spoke 
the word as a devout man speaks of God. “ It’s the 
only chance — now or never,” he went on with per¬ 
fect coldness. “ You’ve got to hold up and do your 
share — I know you can. If we succeed—and 
we’ve got every chance — it’s freedom, escape from 
this island and Doomsdorf. If we fail, it’s likely 
death — but death couldn’t be any worse than this. 
So we’ve nothing to lose —and everything to gain.” 

Was it not true? Have not the greatest of all 
peoples always known that it is better to die than 
to live as slaves? It was the very slogan of the 
ages — the great inspiration without which human 
beings are not fit to live. Overswept by their ardor 
Lenore turned back through the door. 

Her instructions were simple. The easiest task 
of the three was hers. Bess took one of the crude 
chairs, her handkerchief — clutched as if she had 
been weeping — in her lap. Ned sat down in one 
of the other chairs, intending to arise and excuse 
himself the instant Doomsdorf appeared. His 
muscles burned under his skin. 

It was only about fifty yards to the cabin. If 
Doomsdorf came at all, it would be in the space of 
a few seconds. Lenore started out bravely: her 
part of the task would be over in a moment. Just 
a few steps in the glare of the Northern Lights, 
just a few listless words to Doomsdorf, and liberty 
might easily be her reward. All the triumphs she 
had once known might be hers again; luxury in¬ 
stead of hardship, flattery instead of scorn — free¬ 
dom instead of slavery. But what if the plan 




301 


The Isle of Retribution 

failed? Ned had spoken bluntly, but beyond all 
shadow of doubt he had told the truth. Death 
would be the answer to all failure. Destruction for 
all three. 

The door of the cabin closed behind her, and Le- 
nore was alone with the night. The night was 
rather temperate, for these latitudes, yet her first 
sensation was one of cold. It seemed to be creep¬ 
ing into her spirit, laying its blasting hand m cn her 
heart. The stars appalled her, the Norther ' eights 
were unutterably dreadful. She tried to walk 
faster, but instead she found herself walking more 
slowly. 

The wind stirred through the little spruce, whis¬ 
pering, whimpering, trying to reach her ear with 
messages to which she dared not listen, chilling her 
to the core, appalling her with its hushed, half-ar¬ 
ticulate song of woe and death. There was nothing 
but Death on these snowy hills. It walked them 
alone. It was Death that looked into her eyes now, 
so close she could feel its icy hand on hers, its hol¬ 
low visage leering close to her own. Life might be 
hateful, its persecutions never done, but Death was 
darkness, oblivion, a mystery and a terror beyond 
the reach of thought. 

So faint that it seemed some secret voice within 
her own being, the long-drawn singsong cry of a 
starving wolf trembled down to her from a distant 
ridge. Here was another who knew about Death. 
He knew the woe and the travail that is life, utter 
subservience to the raw forces of the North; and 
yet he dared not die. This was the basic instinct. 


302 


The Isle of Retribution 

Compared to it freedom was a feeble urge that was 
soon forgotten. This whole wintry world was peo¬ 
pled with living creatures who hated life and yet 
who dared not leave it. The forces of the North 
were near and commanding to-night: they were 
showing her up, stripping her of her delusions, lay¬ 
ing bare the secret places of her heart and soul, 
testing her as she had never been tested before. 

Could she too take the fighting chance? Could 
she too rise above this awful first fear: master it, 
scorn it, go her brave way in the face of it? 

But before ever she found her answer, she found 
herself at the cabin door. It seemed to her that she 
had crossed the intervening distance on the wings of 
the wind. In as short a time more Doomsdorf 
could reach the newer cabin, — and the issue would 
be decided. Either they would be free, or under 
the immutable sentence of death; not just Bess and 
Ned, but herself too. She would pay the price with 
the rest. The wind would sweep over the island 
and never hear her voice mingling with its own. 
For her, the world would cease to be. The fire was 
warm and kindly in the hearth, but she was re¬ 
nouncing it, for she knew not what of cold and 
terror. Not just Ned and Bess would pay the 
price, but she too. Listless, terrified almost to the 
verge of collapse, she turned the knob and opened 
the door. Doomsdorf had not yet gone to his 
blankets; otherwise the great bolt of iron would be 
in place. He was still sitting before the great, 
glowing stove, dreaming his savage dreams. The 
girl halted before him, leaning against a chair. 


The Isle of Retribution 


303 


At first her tongue could hardly shape the words. 
Her throat filled, her heart faltered in her breast. 
“ Bess — asked to see you,” she told him at last. 
“She says for you to come — to her cabin.” 

The man regarded her with quickening interest, 
yet without the slightest trace of suspicion. It 
seemed almost incredible that he did not see the 
withering terror behind those blanched cheeks and 
starting eyes and immediately guess its cause: only 
his own colossal arrogance saved the plot at the out¬ 
set. He was simply so triumphant by what seemed 
to be Bess’s surrender, so drunk with his success in 
handling a problem that at first had seemed so 
difficult, that the idea of conspiracy could not even 
occur to him. He hardly saw the girl before him; 
if he had noticed her at first, she was forgotten at 
once in his exultation. Even the lifeless tone in 
which she spoke made no impression upon him: he 
only heard her words. 

He got up at once. Lenore stared at him as if 
in a nightmare. She had hoped in her deepest heart 
that he would refuse to come, that the great test ol 
her soul could be avoided, but already he was start¬ 
ing out the door. She had done her part; she could 
wait here, if she liked, till the thing was settled. In 
a few seconds more she would know her fate. 

Yet she couldn’t stay here and wait. To Dooms- 
dorf’s surprise, she followed him through the door, 
into the glare of the Northern Lights. She did not 
know what impulse moved her; she was only aware 
of the growing cold of terror. Not only Ned and 
Bess would pay the price if the plan failed. She 


304 


The Isle of Retribution 

must pay too. The thought haunted her, every 
step, every wild beat of her heart. 

All her life her philosophy had been of Self. 
And now, that Self was once more in the forefront 
of her consciousness, she found her wild excitement 
passed away, her brain working clear and sure. 
The night itself terrified her no more. She was 
beyond such imaginative fears as that: remem¬ 
brance of Self her own danger and destiny, was 
making a woman of her again. Only a fool forgot 
Self for a dream. Only a madman risked dear life 
for an ideal. Once more she was down to realities: 
she was steadied and calmed, able to balance one 
thing with another. And now she had at her com¬ 
mand a superlative craft, even a degree of cun¬ 
ning. 

She must not forget that lately her position had 
been one of comparative comfort. She was a slave, 
fawning upon a brute in human form, but the cold 
had mostly spared her; and she knew nothing of the 
terrible hardships that had been the share of Ned 
and Bess. Yet she was taking equal risks with 
them. It is better to live and hate life than to die; 
it is better to be a living slave than a dead freeman. 
Besides, lately she had been awarded even greater 
comforts, won by fawning upon her master. Her 
privileges would be taken swiftly from her if the 
plan failed. She would not be able to persuade 
Hoomsdorf that she was guiltless of the plot; she 
had been the agent in decoying him to the cabin, 
and likely enough, since her work took her among 
the various cabin stores, he would attribute to her 


305 


The Isle of Retribution 

the finding and smuggling out of the tin of snuff. 
If the plot failed, Doomsdorf would punish her 
part with death, — or else with pain and hardship 
hardly less than death. If Bess failed to reach his 
eyes with the blinding snuff, if Ned’s axe missed its 
mark, she as well as they would he utterly lost. 

Doomsdorf was walking swiftly; already he was 
halfway from the door. The desperate fight for 
freedom was almost at hand. But what was free¬ 
dom compared to the fear and darkness that is 
death? 

The ideal sustained her no more. It brought no 
fire to her frozen heart. It was an empty word, 
nothing that could thrill and move one of her kind 
and creed. Its meaning flickered out for her, and 
terror, infinite and irresistible, seized her like a 
storm. 

There were no depths of ignominy beyond her 
now. She cried out shrilly and incoherently, then 
stumbling through the snow, caught Doomsdorf’s 
arm. “ No, no,” she cried, fawning with lips and 
hands. “ Don’t go in there — they’re going to try 
to kill you. I didn’t have anything to do with it 
— I swear I didn’t — and don’t make me suffer 
when I’ve saved you-” 

He shook her roughly, until the torrent of her 
words had ceased, and she was silenced beneath his 
lurid gaze. 

“You say — they’ve got a trap laid for me? ” he 
demanded. 

Her hands clasped before him. “ Yes, but I say 
I’m not guilty-” 





306 


The Isle of Retribution 


He pushed her contemptuously from him, and 
she fell in the snow. Then, with a half-animal snarl 
that revealed all too plainly his murderous rage, he 
drew his pistol from his holster and started on. 


XXIX 


Watching through the crack in the door Ned 
saw the girl’s act; and her treason was immediately 
evident to him. Whatever darkness engrossed him 
at the sight of the ignoble girl, begging for her little 
life even at the cost of her lover’s, showed not at all 
in his white, set face. Whatever unspeakable 
despair came upon him at this ruin of his ideals, 
this destruction of all his hopes, it was evidenced 
neither in his actions nor in the clear, cool quality 
of his thought. 

No other crisis had ever found him better dis¬ 
ciplined. His mind seemed to circumscribe the 
whole, dread situation in an instant. He turned, 
met Bess’s straightforward gaze, saw her half-smile 
of complete understanding. As she leaped toward 
him, he snatched up their two hooded outer coats, 
and his arm half encircling her, he guided her 
through the door. 

Whether or not she realized what had occurred 
he did not know, but there was no time to tell her 
now. Nor were explanations necessary; trusting 
him to the last she would follow where he led. 
“ We’ll have to run for it,” he whispered simply. 
“ Fast as you can.” 

Ned had taken in the situation, made his de¬ 
cision, seized the parkas, and guided Bess through 
the door all in one breath: the drama of Lenore’s 


308 


The Isle of Retribution 

tragic dishonor was still in progress in the glare of 
the Northern Lights. Doomsdorf, standing back 
to them, did not see the two slip out the door, snatch 
up their snowshoes and fly. Otherwise his pistol 
would have been quick to halt them. Almost at 
once they were concealed, except for their strange 
flickering shadows in the snow, behind the first 
fringe of stunted spruce. 

Ned led her straight toward the ice-bound sea. 
He realized at once that their least shadow of hope 
lay in fast flight that might take them to some in¬ 
habited island before Doomsdorf could overtake 
them; never in giving him a chase across his own 
tundras. Even this chance was tragically small, 
but it was all they had. To stay, to linger but a 
moment, meant death from Doomsdorf’s pistol — 
or perhaps from some more ingenious engine that 
his half-mad cunning might devise. 

Only the miles of empty ice stretched before 
them, covered deep with snow and unworldly in the 
glimmer of the Northern Lights that still flickered 
wanly in the sky; yet no other path was open. 
They halted a single instant in the shelter of the 
thickets, slipped on their snowshoes, then mushed 
as fast as they could on to the beach. In scarcely a 
moment they were venturing out on the ice-bound 
wastes. 

Doomsdorf encountered their tracks as he 
reached the cabin door, and guessing their intent, 
raced for the higher ground just above the cabin. 
But when he caught sight of the fugitives, they 
were already out of effective pistol range. He 


309 


The Isle of Retribution 

fired impotently until the hammer clicked down 
against an empty breach, and then, still senseless 
with fury, darted down to the cabin for his rifle. 

But he halted before he reached the door. After 
all, there was no particular hurry. He knew how 
many miles of ice — some of it almost impassable 
— lay between his island and Tzar Island, far to 
the east. It was not the journey for a man and 
woman, traveling without supplies. There was no 
need of sending his singing lead after them. Cold 
and hunger, if he gave them play, would stop them 
soon enough. 

He had, however, other plans. He turned 
through the cabin door, spoke to the sullen squaw, 
then began to make preparations for a journey. 
He took a cold-proof wolf-hide robe, wrapped in it 
a great sack of pemmican, and made it into a con¬ 
venient pack for his back. Then he reloaded his 
pistol, took the rifle down from the wall, and 
started forth down the trail that Ned and Bess had 
made. 

It was likely true that the cold, though not 
particularly intense to-night, would master them 
before ever they could reach Tzar Island. They 
had no food, and inner fuel is simply a matter of 
life and death while traveling Arctic ice. They 
had no guns to procure a fox, or any other living 
creatures that they might encounter on the ice 
fields. But yet Doomsdorf was not content. 
Death of cold was hardly less merciful than that of 
a bullet. Just destruction would not satisfy the 
fury in his heart; the strange, dark lust that raced 



310 


The Isle of Retribution 

through his veins like poison demanded a more di¬ 
rect vengeance. Particularly he did not want Bess 
to die on the ice. He would simply follow them, 
overtake them, and bring them back; then some 
really diverting thing would likely occur to him. 

It would be easy to do. There was no man in 
the North who could compete with him in a fair 
race. The two had less than a mile start of him, 
and to overtake them was but a matter of hours. 
On the other hand long days of travel, one after 
another past all endurance, would be necessary be¬ 
fore they could ever hope to cross the ice ranges to 
reach the settlements on Tzar Island. 

To Bess first came the realization of the utter 
hopelessness of their flight. She could not blind 
herself to this fact. Nor did she try to hide from 
herself the truth: in these last, bitter months she 
had found that the way of wisdom was to look truth 
in the face, struggling against it to the lin^t of her 
strength, but yielding herself neither to vain hope 
nor untoward despair. The reason why the flight 
was hopeless was because she herself could not 
stand the pace. She did not have the beginning of 
Ned’s strength. Soon he would have to hold back 
so that she could follow with greater ease, and that 
meant their remorseless hunter would catch up. 
The venture had got down simply to a trial of speed 
between Doomsdorf, whose mighty strength gave 
him every advantage, and Ned, who braved the ice 
with neither blankets nor food supplies. Her pres¬ 
ence, slowing down Ned’s speed, increased the odds 
against him beyond the last frontier of hope. 


311 


The Isle of Retribution 

% 

Tired though she was from the day’s toil, she 
moved freshly and easily at first. Ned broke trail, 
she mushed a few feet behind. She had no sensa¬ 
tion of cold; hardened to steel, her muscles moved 
like the sliding parts of a wonderful machine. The 
ice was wonderfully smooth as yet, almost like the 
first, thin, bay ice frozen to the depth of safety. 
But already the killing pace had begun to tell. She 
couldn’t keep it up forever without food and rest. 
And the brute behind her was tireless, remorseless 
as death itself. 

The Northern Lights died at last in the sky, and 
the two hastened on in the wan light of a little 
moon that was already falling toward the west. 
And now she was made aware that the night was 
bitter cold. It was getting to her, in spite of her 
furs. But as yet she gave no sign of distress to 
Ned. A great bravery had come into her heart, 
and already she could see the dawn — the first 
aurora of ineffable beauty — of her far-off and 
glorious purpose. She would not let herself stop 
to rest. She would not ask Ned to slacken his pace. 
She was tired to the point of anguish already; soon 
she would know the last stages of fatigue; but even 
then she would not give sign. Out of her love for 
him a new strength was born — that sublime and 
unnamable strength of women that is nearest to 
divinity of anything upon this lowly earth — and 
she knew that it would hold her up beyond the last 
limits of physical exhaustion. She would not give 
way to unconsciousness, thus causing Ned to stop 
and wait beside her till she died. None of these 


312 


The Isle of Retribution 

things would she do. Her spirit soared with the 
wings of her resolve. Instead, her plan was simply 
to hasten on — to keep up the pace — until she 
toppled forward lifeless on the ice. She would 
master herself until death mastered her. Then 
Ned, halting but an instant to learn the truth, could 
speed on alone. Thus he would have no cause to 
wait for her. 

He travels the fastest who travels alone. Out of 
his chivalry he would never leave her so long as a 
spark of life remained in her body: her course was 
simply to stand the pace until the last spark went 
out. She could fight away unconsciousness. She 
knew she could; as her physical strength ebbed, she 
felt this new, wondrous power sweeping through 
her. 

He travels the fastest who travels alone. With¬ 
out her, his mighty strength of body and spirit 
might carry him to safety. It was a long chance at 
best, over the ice mountains; but this man who 
mushed before her was not of ordinary mold. The 
terrible training camp through which he had passed 
had made of him a man of steel, giving him the lungs 
of a wolf and a lion’s heart, and it was conceivable 
that, after unimagined hardship, he might make 
Tzar Island. There he could get together a party 
to rescue Lenore, and though his love for the ig¬ 
noble girl was dead, his destiny would come out 
right after all. It was all she dared pray for now, 
— that he might find life and safety. But he was 
beaten at the start if he had to wait for her. 

On and on through the night they sped, over that 


313 


The Isle of Retribution 

wonderfully smooth ice, never daring to halt: 
strange, wandering figures in the moonlit snow. 
But Bess was not to carry her brave intent through 
to the end. She had not counted on Ned’s power 
of observation. He suddenly halted, turned and 
looked into her face. 

It was wan and dim in the pale light; and yet 
something about its deepening lines quickened his 
interest. She saw him start; and with a single 
syllable of an oath, reached his hand under her hood 
to the track of the artery at her throat. He needed 
to listen but an instant to the fevered pulse to know 
the truth. 

“ We’re going too fast,” he told her shortly. 

“No — no! ” Her tone was desperate, and his 
eyes narrowed with suspicion. Wrenching back 
her self-control she tried to speak casually. “ I can 
keep up easily,” she told him. “ I don’t feel it yet 
— I’ll tell you when I do. We can’t ever make it 
if we slow up.” 

He shook his head, wholly unconvinced. “ I 
don’t know what’s got into you, Bess. You can’t 
fool me. I know I feel it, good and plenty, and 
you’re just running yourself to death. Doomsdorf 
himself can’t do any more than kill us-” 

“ But he can-” 

“ We’re going to hit an easier pace. Believe me, 
he’s not running his heart out. He’s planning on 
endurance, rather than speed. I was a fool not to 
think about you until it began to get me.” 

It was true that the killing pace had been using 
up the vital nervous forces of both their bodies. 





314 The Isle of Retribution 

Ned was suffering scarcely not at all as yet, but he 
had caught the first danger signals. Bess was al¬ 
ready approaching the danger point of fatigue. 
When Ned started on again he took a quick but 
fairly easy walking pace. 

Yet Bess’s only impulse was to give way to tears. 
If their first gait had been too fast, this was far 
too slow. While it was the absolute maximum that 
she could endure — indeed she could not stand it 
without regular rests that would ultimately put 
them in Doomsdorf’s hands — it was considerably 
below Ned’s limit. He could not make it through 
at such a pace as this. Because of her, he was de¬ 
stroying his own chance for life and freedom. 

They mushed on in silence, not even glancing 
back to keep track of Doomsdorf. And it came 
about, in the last hours of the night, that the rest 
both of them so direly needed was forced upon them 
by the powers of nature. The moon set; and gen¬ 
erally smooth though the ice was, they could not 
go on by starlight. There was nothing to do but 
rest till dawn. 

“ Lie down on the ice,” Ned advised, “ and don’t 
worry about waking up.” His voice moved her 
and thrilled her in the darkness. “ I’ll set mvself 
to wake up at the first ray; that’s one thing I can 
always do.” She let her tired body slip down on 
the snow, relying only on her warm fur garments 
to protect her from it. Ned quickly settled beside 
her. “ And you’d better lie as close to me as you 
can.” 

He was prompted only by the expedience of cold. 


315 


The Isle of Retribution 

Yet as she drew near, pressing her body against his, 
it was as if some dream that she had dared not ad¬ 
mit, even to herself, had come true. Nothing could 
harm her now. The east wind could mock at her in 
vain, the starry darkness had no terror for her. 
The warmth of his body sped through her, dear 
beyond all naming; and such a ghost as but rarely 
walks those empty ice fields came and enfolded her 
with loving arms. 

It was the Ghost of Happiness. Of course it 
was not real happiness, — only its shadow, only its 
dim image built of the unsubstantial stuff of dreams, 
yet it was an ineffable glory to her aching heart. 
It was just an apparition that was born of her own 
vain hopes, yet it was kindly, yielding one hour of 
unspeakable loveliness in this night of woe and ter¬ 
ror. Lying breast to breast, she could pretend that 
he was hers, to-night. Of course real happiness 
could not come to her; the heart that beat so stead¬ 
ily close to hers was never hers; yet for this little 
hour she was one with him, and the ghost seemed 
very, very near. She could forget the weary wastes 
of ice, the cold northern stars, their ruthless enemy 
ever drawing nearer. 

Instinctively Ned’s arms went about her, press¬ 
ing her close; and tremulous with this ghost of hap¬ 
piness, the high-born strength of woman’s love 
surged through her again, more compelling than 
ever before. Once more her purpose flamed, wan 
and dim at first, then slowly brightening until its 
ineffable beauty filled her eyes with tears. Once 
more she saw a course of action whereby Ned might 


316 


The Isle of Retribution 


have a fighting chance for life. Her first plan, de¬ 
nied her because of Ned’s refusal to lead faster than 
she could follow, had embodied her own unhappy 
death from the simple burning up of her life forces 
from over-exertion; but this that occurred to her 
now was not so merciful. It might easily preclude 
a fate that was ten times worse than death. Yet 
she was only glad that she had thought of it. She 
suddenly lifted her face, trying to pierce the press¬ 
ing gloom and behold Ned’s. 

“ I want you to promise me something, Ned,” 
she told him quietly. 

He answered her clearly, from full wakefulness. 
“ What is it? ” 

“ I want you to promise — that if you see there’s 
no hope for me — that you’ll go on — without me. 
Suppose Doomsdorf almost overtook us — and you 
saw that he could seize me — but you could escape 
— I want you to promise that you won’t wait.” 

“To run off and desert you-” 

“ Listen, Ned. Use your good sense. Say I was 
in a place where I couldn’t get away, and you could. 
Suppose we became separated somehow on the ice, 
and he should be overtaking me, but you’d have a 
good chance to go to safety. Oh, you would go on, 
wouldn’t you? ” Her tone was one of infinite 
pleading. “ Would there be any use of your re¬ 
turning — and getting killed yourself — when you 
couldn’t possibly save me? Don’t you see the thing 
to do would be to keep on — with the hope of com¬ 
ing out at last — and then getting up an expedi¬ 
tion to rescue me? Promise me you won’t destroy 





The Isle of Retribution 317 

what little hope we have by doing such a foolish 
thing as that-” 

Wondering, mystified by her earnestness, half in¬ 
clined to believe that she was at the verge of de¬ 
lirium from cold and exertion, his arms tightened 
about her and he gave her his promise so that she 
might rest. “ Of course I’ll do the wise thing,” he 
told her. “ The only thing! ” 

Her strong little arms responded to the embrace, 
and slowly, joyously she drew his face toward hers. 
“ Then kiss me, Ned,” she told him, soberly yet 
happily, as a child might beg a kiss at bedtime. 
Her love for him welled in her heart. “ I want you 
to kiss me good night.” 

Slowly, with all the tenderness of his noble man¬ 
hood, he pressed his lips to hers. “ Good night, 
Bess,” he told her simply. For an instant, night 
and cold and danger were forgotten. “ Good night, 
little girl.” 

Their lips met again, but now they did not fall 
away so that he could speak. There was no need 
for words. His arm about her held her lips to his, 
and thus they lay, forgetting the wastes of ice about 
them, for the moment secure from the cruel forces 
that had hounded them so long. The wind swept by 
unheard. The fine snow drifted before it, as if it 
meant to cover them and never yield them up again. 
The dimmer stars faded and vanished into the re¬ 
cesses of the sky. 

The cold’s scourge was impotent now. The hour 
was like some dream of childhood: calm, wondrous, 
ineffably sweet. The ghost of happiness seemed no 



318 


The Isle of Retribution 


longer just a shadow. For the moment Bess’s 
fancy believed it real. 

Sleep drifted over Ned. Still with her lips on 
his, Bess listened till his slow, quiet breathing told 
her that he was no longer conscious. She waited 
an instant more, her arms trembling as she pressed 
him close as she could. 

“ I love you, Ned,” she whispered. “ Whatever 
I do — it’s all for love of you.” 

Then, very softly so as not to waken him, she 
slipped out of his embrace and got to her feet. She 
started away straight north, — at right angles to 
the direction that they had gone before. 



XXX 


Ned’s instincts had been trained like the rest of 
him, and they watched over him while he slept. 
They aroused him from sleep as soon as it was 
light enough to pick his way over the rough ice that 
lay in front, yet as if in realization of his physical 
need of rest, not an instant sooner. He sprang up 
to find the dawn, gray over the ice-bound sea. 

But the miracle of the morning, even the possi¬ 
bility that Doomsdorf had made time while he slept 
and was now almost upon him did not hold his 
thought an instant. His mind could not reach be¬ 
yond the tragic fact that he was alone. Bess was 
gone, vanished like a spirit that had never been in 
the gray dawn. 

The moment was one of cruel but wonderful 
revelation to Ned. It was as if some unspeakable 
blessing had come to one who was blind, but before 
ever sight came to him, it was snatched away. As 
sleep had fallen over him, he had suddenly been 
close to the most profound discovery, the greatest 
truth yet of his earthly life; but now only its image 
remained. Bess had been in his arms, her lips 
against his, but now his arms were empty and his 
lips were cold. 

She had gone. Her tracks led straight north 
through the snow. The most glorious hour life had 
ever given him had faded like a dream. Whence 


320 The Isle of Retribution 

lay this glory, the source of his wonder as well as 
the crushing despair that now was upon him he 
might have seen in one more glance; in one mo¬ 
ment’s scrutiny of his soul he might have laid bare 
a heart’s secret that had eluded him for all these 
past weary weeks. But there was no time for such 
now. Bess had gone, and he must follow her. This 
was the one truth left in an incredible heaven and 
earth. 

Her last words swept through his memory. 
They gave him the key: his deductions followed 
swift and sure by the process of remorseless logic. 
In a single moment he knew the dreadful truth: 
Bess had not gone on in the expectation of Ned 
overtaking her, thus saving a few moments of his 
precious time. She had not gone east at all. She 
knew the stars as well as he did: she would have 
never, except by some secret purpose, turned 
north instead of east. He saw the truth all too 
plain. 

“ Say we became separated somehow on the ice,” 
she had told him before he slept, “ and he should be 
overtaking me but you’d have a chance to go on to 
safety! ” To quiet her, he had given her his prom¬ 
ise to go on and leave her to her fate; and now she 
had purposely separated herself from him. She 
had gone to decoy Doomsdorf from his trail. 

She had chosen the direction that would give 
Doomsdorf the longest chase and take him farthest 
from Ned’s trail. He couldn’t follow them both. 
The morning light would show him that his two 
fugitives had separated; and she had reasoned 


321 


The Isle of Retribution 

soundly in thinking that their enemy would pursue 
her, rather than Ned. His lust for her was too 
commanding for him to take any other course. 
While he pursued her, Ned would have every 
chance to hurry on eastward to the safety of Tzar 
Island. 

Had he not promised that if he found he could 
not aid her, he would go on alone? Realizing that 
she was holding him back, had she not put herself 
where it would be impossible for him to give her 
further aid. It would only mean capture and death, 
certain as the brightening dawn, for him to follow 
and attempt to come between her and Doomsdorf. 
On the other hand, this was his chance: while their 
savage foe ran north in pursuit of Bess, Ned himself 
could put a distance between them that could hardly 
be overtaken. There was nothing to gain by fol¬ 
lowing her — her capture at Doomsdorf s hands 
was an ultimate certainty — only his own life to 
lose. 

She had reasoned true. Together their flight 
was hopeless. Alone, he had a chance. By leading 
Doomsdorf from his trail she had increased might¬ 
ily that chance. The affair was all one sided. Yet, 
not knowing why, he took the side of folly. 

Never for a moment did he even consider going 
on and leaving her to her fate. He could not aid 
her, and yet in one moment more he had launched 
forth on her trail, faster than he had ever mushed 
before. He had no inward battle, no sense of sac¬ 
rifice. There was not even a temptation to take the 
way of safety. In these last months he had been 



322 The Isle of Retribution 

lifted far beyond the reach of any such feeble voice 
as that. 

He sped as fast as he could along the dim trail 
she had made. The dawn, icy-breathed, soon out¬ 
distanced him, permitting him to see Bess’s fleeing 
form before he had scarcely begun to overtake her. 
She was just a dark shadow at first against the 
stretching fields of white; but he never lost sight of 
her after that. With the brightening dawn he saw 
her ever more distinctly. 

And in the middle distance, west of both of them, 
he saw the huge, dark form of Doomsdorf bearing 
down upon her. 

She had guessed right as to Doomsdorf. Catch¬ 
ing sight of her, he had left their double trail to 
overtake her. Hoping and believing that Ned had 
taken his chance of safety and was fleeing eastward, 
she was leading his enemy ever farther and farther 
north, away from him. 

He was a strong man, this Cornet who had 
fought the North, but the bitter, scalding tears shot 
into his eyes at the sight of that strange, hopeless 
drama on the ice. But not one of them was in self- 
pity. They were all for the slight figure of the girl, 
trying still to save him, running so hopelessly from 
the brute who was even now upon her. To Ned, 
the scene had lost its quality of horror. It was only 
unspeakably tragic there behind the rising curtains 
of the dawn. 

She was trying to dodge him now, cutting back 
and forth as a mouse might try to dodge the talons 
of a cat, — still trying to save a few little seconds 


323 


The Isle of Retribution 

for Ned. She wasn’t aware yet that her trial was 
all in vain. In an attempt to hold Doomsdorf off 
as long as possible, she had not paused one instant 
to assure herself that Ned had gone on east. He 
had given her his word; likely she trusted him im¬ 
plicitly. The man’s heart seemed to swell, ready to 
break, in pity for her. 

A moment later he saw her slip on the ice, and 
in dread silence, Doomsdorf’s arms went about her. 
Neither of them had apparently observed Ned. 
They only became aware of him as his great shout, 
half in rage, half in defiance, reached them across 
the ice. 

It was really an instinctive cry. Partly the im¬ 
pulse behind it was to warn Doomsdorf of his pres¬ 
ence, hoping thus to call his attention from Bess 
and thus save the girl immediate insult at his hands. 
And kneeling upon the girl’s form, like a great bear 
upon its living prey, Doomsdorf looked up and saw 
him. 

Even at the distance that separated them the 
startled movement of his head revealed his unutter¬ 
able amazement. Doubtless he thought that Ned 
was miles to the east by now. The amazement gave 
way to boundless triumph as Ned walked calmly 
toward him. Then while he held the girl prone 
on the ice with his great knee, Doomsdorf’s rifle 
made blue lightning in the air. 

Ned’s response was to throw his arms immedi¬ 
ately into the air in token of complete surrender. 
He was thinking coolly, his faculties in perfect con¬ 
trol; and he knew he must not attempt resistance 


324 


The Isle of Retribution 


now. Only death lay that way; at that range 
Doomsdorf could shatter him lifeless to the ice with 
one shot from the heavy rifle. It wasn’t enough 
just to die, thus taking a quick road out of Dooms- 
dorf’s power. Such a course would not aid Bess. 
And to Bess he owed his duty — to aid Bess, in 
every way he could, was his last dream. 

At first he had had to play the cruel game for 
the sake of Lenore. That obligation was past now; 
but it had never, at its greatest, moved him with 
one-half the ardor as this he bore to Bess. He must 
not go this route to freedom, or any other, until 
Bess could go with him. He must not leave her in 
Doomsdorf’s power. 

That much was sure. Self-inflicted death did 
not come into the Russian’s calculations — he was 
too close to the beasts for that — so he would not 
be on guard. Whatever befell, this gate was al¬ 
ways open. Ned would play the game through to 
the end, at her side. 

Doomsdorf watched him approach in silence. 
The triumphant gloating that Ned expected did 
not come to pass; evidently their brute master was 
in too savage a mood even for this. “ Wait where 
you are,” he ordered simply, “or I’ll blow your 
head off. I’ll be ready for you in a minute.” 

He bent, and with one motion jerked Bess to her 
feet. Then in silence, still guarding them with his 
rifle, he pointed them their way, — back to his cabin 
on the island. 

It was a long and bitter march across that deso¬ 
late ice. Except for a share of his pemmican that 




325 


The Isle of Retribution 

Doomsdorf distributed, for expedience rather than 
through any impulse of mercy, Bess could have 
hardly lasted out. They walked almost in silence, 
Ned in front, then Bess, their captor bringing up 
the rear; a strange death march over those frozen 
seas. 

This was the end. The fight was done; there 
was no thought or dream but that the last, fighting 
chance was lost. Ned knew he was going to his 
death: any other possibility was utterly beyond 
hope. The only wonder he had left was what form 
his death would take. There was no shadow of 
mercy on the evil face of his captor. 

Bess knew that her portion was also death, sim¬ 
ply because the white, pure flame that was her life 
could not abide in the body that was prey to 
Doomsdorf. Death itself would cheat those ter¬ 
rible, ravishing hands: this was as certain a con¬ 
viction as any she had ever known in all the brief 
dream of her life. Whether it would be brought 
about by her own hand, by the merciful, caressing 
touch of her lover’s knife, or whether simply by 
outraged nature, snatching her out of Doomsdorf’s 
power, she neither knew nor cared. 

The file trudged on. Ned led the way unguided. 
The hours passed. The dim shadow of the shore 
crags strengthened. And another twilight was lay¬ 
ing its first shadows on the snow as they stepped 
upon the snowy beach. 

It was at this point that Bess suddenly experi¬ 
enced an inexplicable quickening of her pulse, an 
untraced but breathless excitement that was wholly 


326 


The Isle of Retribution 

apart from the fact that she was nearing the cabin 
of her destiny. The air itself seemed curiously 
hushed, electric, as if a great storm were gathering; 
the moment was poignant with a breathless sus¬ 
pense. She could not have told why. Warning of 
impending, great events had been transmitted to 
her through some unguessed under-consciousness; 
some way, somehow, she knew that it had reached 
her from the mind of the man who walked in front. 
Fiery thoughts were leaping through Ned’s brain, 
and some way they had passed their flame to her. 

A moment later Ned turned to her, ostensibly to 
help her up the steep slope of the beach. She saw 
with amazement that his face was stark white and 
that his eyes glowed like live coals. Yet no mes¬ 
sage was conveyed to Doomsdorf, tramping behind. 
It was only her own closeness to him, her love that 
brought her soul to his, that told her of some 
far-reaching and terrific crisis that was at hand at 
last. 

“ Walk exactly in my steps! ” he whispered un¬ 
der his breath. It was only the faintest wisp of 
sound, no louder than his own breathing; yet 
Bess caught every word. She did not have to be 
told that there was infinite urgency behind the com¬ 
mand. Her nerves seemed to leap and twitch; yet 
outwardly there was no visible sign that a message 
had been passed between them. 

Now Ned was leading up toward the shore crags, 
into a little pass between the rocks that was the 
natural egress from the beach on to the hills behind. 
He walked easily, one step after another in regular 


327 


The Isle of Retribution 

cadence: only his glowing eyes could have told that 
this instant had, by light of circumstances beyond 
Bess’s ken, become the most crucial in his life. And 
it was a strange and ironic thing that the knowledge 
he relied on now, the facility that might turn defeat 
into victory, was not some finesse gained in his 
years of civilized living, no cultural growth from 
some great university far to the south, but merely 
one of the basic tricks of a humble trade. 

Doomsdorf had told him, once, that a good trap¬ 
per must learn to mark his sets. Any square yard 
of territory must be so identified, in the mind’s eye, 
that the trapper can return, days later, walk 
straight to it and know its every detail. Ned Cor¬ 
net had learned his trade. He was a trapper; and 
he knew this snowy pass as an artist knows his can¬ 
vas. He stepped boldly through. 

Bess walked just behind, stepping exactly in his 
tracks. Her heart raced. It was not merely be¬ 
cause the full truth was hidden from her that she 
walked straight and unafraid. She would always 
follow bravely where Ned led. Now both of them 
had passed through the little, narrow gap between 
lofty, snow-swept crags. Doomsdorf trudged just 
behind. 

Then something sharp and calamitous as a light¬ 
ning bolt seemed to strike the pass. There was a 
loud ring and clang of metal, the sharp crack of a 
snowshoe frame broken to kindling, and then, ob¬ 
literating both, a wild bellow of human agony like 
that of a mighty grizzly wounded to the death. 
Ned and Bess had passed in safety, but Doomsdorf 


328 


The Isle of Retribution 

had stepped squarely into the great bear trap that 
Ned had set the evening before. 

The cruel jaws snapped with a clang of iron and 
the crunch of flesh. The shock, more than any hu¬ 
man frame could endure, hurled Doomsdorf to his 
knees; yet so mighty was his physical stamina that 
he was able to retain his grip on his rifle. And the 
instant that he went down Ned turned, leaping with 
savage fury to strike out his hated life before he 
could rise again. 

He was upon him before Doomsdorf could raise 
his rifle. As he sprang he drew his knife from its 
sheath, and it cut a white path through the gather¬ 
ing dusk. And now their arms went about each 
other in a final struggle for mastery. 

Caught though he was in the trap, Doomsdorf 
was not beaten yet. He met that attack with in¬ 
credible power. His great hairy hand caught 
Ned’s arm as it descended, and though he could not 
hold it, he forced him to drop the blade. With the 
other he reached for his enemy’s throat. 

This was the final conflict; yet of such might 
were these contestants, so terrible the fury of their 
onslaughts, that both knew at once that the fight 
was one of seconds. These two mighty men gave 
all they had. The fingers clutched and closed at 
Ned’s throat. The right hand of the latter, from 
which the blade had fallen, tugged at the pistol butt 
at Doomsdorf’s holster. 

Bess leaped in, like a she-wolf in defense of her 
cubs, but one great sweep of Doomsdorf’s arm 
hurled her unconscious in the snow. There were to 


329 


The Isle of Retribution 

be no outside forces influencing this battle. The 
trap at Doomsdorf’s foot was Ned’s only advan¬ 
tage; and he had decoyed his enemy into it by his 
own cunning. It was man to man at last: a cruel 
war settled for good and all. 

It could endure but an instant more. Already 
those iron fingers were crushing out Ned’s life. So 
closely matched were the two foes, so terrible their 
strength, that their bodies scarcely moved at all; 
each held the other in an iron embrace, Ned tug¬ 
ging with his left hand at the fingers that clutched 
his throat, Doomsdorf trying to prevent his foe 
from drawing the pistol that he wore at his belt and 
turning it against him. 

It was the last war; and now it had become 
merely a question of which would break first. They 
lay together in the snow, utterly silent, motionless, 
for all human ej^es could see, their faces white with 
agony, every muscle exerting its full, terrific pres¬ 
sure. Ever Doomsdorf’s fingers closed more 
tightly at Ned’s throat; ever Ned’s right hand drew 
slowly at the pistol at Doomsdorf’s belt. 

Neither the gun nor the strangling fingers would 
be needed in a moment more. The strain itself 
would soon shatter and destroy their mortal hearts. 
The night seemed to be falling before Ned’s eyes; 
his familiar, snowy world was dark with the nearing 
shadow of death. But the pistol was free of the 
holster now, and he was trying to turn it in his 
hand. 

It took all the strength of his remaining con¬ 
sciousness to exert a last, vital ounce of pressure. 


330 


The Isle of Retribution 


Then there was a curious low sound, muffled and 
dull as sounds heard in a dream. And dreams 
passed over him, like waves over water, as he re¬ 
laxed at last, breathing in great sobs, in the red¬ 
dened drifts. 

Bess, emerging into consciousness, crawled 
slowly toward him. He felt the blessing of her 
nearing presence even in his half-sleep. But 
Doomsdorf, their late master, lay curiously inert, 
his foot still held by the cruel jaws of iron. A 
great beast-of-prey had fallen in the trap; and the 
killer-gun had sped a bullet, ranging upward and 
shattering his wild heart. 

All this was just a page in Hell Island’s history. 
She had had one dynasty a thousand thousand 
years before ever Doomsdorf made his first track 
in her spotless snows; and all that had been done 
and endured was not more than a ripple in the 
tides that beat upon her shores. With a new spring 
she came into her own again. Spring brought the 
Intrepid, sputtering through the new passages be¬ 
tween the floes; and the old island kings returned 
to rule before ever the masts of the little craft had 
faded and vanished in the haze. 

The Intrepid had taken cargo other than the 
usual bales of furs. The sounds of human voices 
were no more to be heard in the silences, and the 
wolf was no longer startled, fear and wonder at 
his heart, by the sight of a tall living form on the 
game trails. The traps were moss-covered and 
lost, and the wind might rage the night through at 


The Isle of Retribution 331 

the cabin window, and no one would hear and no 
one would be afraid. 

The savage powers of the wild held undisputed 
sway once more, not again to be set at naught by 
these self-knowing mortals with a law unto them¬ 
selves. Henceforth all law was that of the wild, 
never to be questioned or disobeyed. 

It may have been that sometimes, on winter 
nights, the wolf pack would meet a strange, great 
shadow on the snow fields: but if so, it was only the 
one-time master of the island, uneasy in his cold 
bed; and it was nothing they need fear or to turn 
them from the trail. It was just a shadow that 
hurried by, a wan figure buffeted by the wind, in 
the eerie flare of the Northern Lights. And even 
this would pass in time. He would be content to 
sleep, and let the snow drift deeper over his head. 

Even the squaw had gone on the Intrepid to join 
her people in a distant tribe. But there is no need 
to follow her, or the three that had taken ship with 
her. On the headlong journey south to spread the 
word of their rescue, of their halting at the first port 
to send word and to learn that the occupants of the 
second lifeboat had been rescued from Tzar Island 
months before, of Godfrey Cornet’s glory at the 
sight of his son’s face and the knowledge of the 
choice he had made, of the light and shadow of 
their life trails in the cities of men, there is nothing 
that need be further scrutinized. To Hell Island 
they were forgotten. The windy snow fields knew 
them no more. 

Yet for all they were bitterly cruel, the wilds had 


332 


The Isle of Retribution 


been kind too. They had shown the gold from the 
dross. They had revealed to Ned the way of hap¬ 
piness, — and it led him straight into Bess’s arms. 
There he could rest at the end of his day’s toil, there 
he found not only love and life, but the sustenance 
of his spirit, the soul of strength by which he might 
stand erect and face the light. 

Thus they had found a safe harbor where the 
Arctic wind might never chill them; a hearth where 
such terror as dwelt in the dark outside could not 
come in. 


THE END 






























































































































